A Brief History of the Clubhouse: A Case Study in the Lifecycle of Digital Cliques
Introduction
Online communities are often founded on shared interests, mutual respect, and a desire for connection. They grow, evolve, and sometimes collapse under the weight of their own contradictions. The Clubhouse began as one such communityâa cheerful, open forum born from a technical glitch on a mainstream advice column. In its early days, it was a welcoming space of casual fun and inside jokes. What follows is a brief history of how a loosely formed comment section coalesced into a clique, and how that clique turned against itself.
The Empty Letter
Back in 2019, a UExpress error created an extra blog entry each time the Miss Manners column published. There was one entry for each letter, and an extra one containing only contact information. Regular UExpress users discovered this and began to talk in the comments of the empty letter. In the early days, this was a fun and positive thing. Users posted jokes and other silly things they came across, and anyone who could behave was welcome. Anyone who couldnât behave was simply blocked, as is normal for such large sites. They started calling it the Clubhouse and themselves the Clubbies.
The New Column
After a quarter, the error was fixed. The participants wanted a new UExpress column for their chatter. They briefly tried a soap opera column, then moved into the Andrews McMeel Almanac.
As they settled in, the Clubhouse scope grew. Some of them took on unofficial jobs, reliably posting certain things each day. There were multiple joke features, an in-house advice feature, and even an original feature with content derived from Reddit. A small community entertained each other and bonded. At this time, the Clubhouse was still largely positive.
It was shortly after this that the entitlement first began to develop. There werenât many comments on the Almanac content, but there were some occasionally, and when non-Clubbies commented on the Almanac, they risked being pelted with coordinated downvotes.
The First Blog
At the time, UExpress did not allow the posting of links or images. Some people wanted to share pictures, and Green obligingly created a blog where they could do so. This was an adjunct to the UExpress community, and it was open to everyone who used UExpress.
The blog was intended for pictures of peopleâs cats and such, but it promptly became a hub of copyright violations and incitementâmaterial the UExpress admins would not allow. Multiple people happily pasted copyrighted material from all over the webânot even posting links, literally swiping the content and pasting it in. Entire comic strips and advice columns were copy-pasted daily, in a cheerful parade of copyright violations that suggested complete indifference.
Not everyone who identified as a Clubbie used the blog. Several stayed almost exclusively in the more positive UExpress environment, and they were largely unaware of the blog activities. Others did visit the blog occasionally but didnât participate in the violations.
The First Cracks
Along with copyright violations, the blog was also used for coordinating group actions back on UExpress. The participants posted sightings and reported that they were on the case to flame the target. UExpress has an easy blocking feature, but they preferred to declare these wars. The blog owner disliked it, but she didnât stop them.
As the group deteriorated, several of the usual signs of decay began to appear. A major one was that the core members began constantly praising the groupâsuch a wonderful group, and such marvelous people! Back when it was genuinely friendly and welcoming, such self-programming wasnât needed. The incitement incidents increased, with organized tactics against so-called trolls happening often. Several users stopped visiting the blog. The core clique didnât seem to notice, or perhaps didnât care.
This was a slow process. It was several years before tensions began to boil over.
The First Blowup
Green, the blog owner, had long disapproved of the incitement. She envisioned the blog as a lighthearted adjunct to the main Clubhouseâan open forum for cat pictures and linksânot as a fortified outpost for gatekeeping and warfare. She banned some users who behaved badly on the blog, even banning one Clubbie who annoyed her once too often, but was unwilling to keep a list of who was and wasnât a Clubbie.
She fought the good fight for years. Over time, though, pressure mounted from certain members who wanted more control. They asked her to ban some users, and she refused and suggested they simply block the users. Instead they flooded her with reports, pinging her with complaints about visitors they deemed enemies. It was a way of forcing her hand, without quite saying the words.
Greenâs labor of love became an unpleasant chore, and an open door became a battering ram. She hadnât signed up for administrative misery or membership determination or petty score-settling, and she found herself at the center of an Internet drama maelstrom. In 2024, without notice and simply fed up, she did what any sensible person would do: she deleted the blog and walked away from UExpress.
The core clique responded with a level of public panic typically reserved for missing hikers and royal kidnappings. Unable to conceive of Green simply being finished with them, they convinced themselves she must have died. For an entire week, the Andrews McMeel Almanac comments consisted almost entirely of several people hysterically posting that theyâd combed the obituaries and so forth, though few deaths also delete blogs.
There was an air of performance about it allâa competition to see who could display the most worry. Some mavericks instead opined that Green had been a troll or a catfish all along. A call for restraint and perspective was swiftly countered with several dramatic suggestions, and the prevailing theory became that Green had likely taken her own life.
Example Screenshot Montage: BlogDeletion.png
The Second Blog
In the vacuum left by her departure, a scramble began. A non-core Clubbie created a replacement blog, but this was ignored. Instead, the group waited on three people who were technically inept but were also core Clubbies. Yellow finally managed the creation, but they werenât able to figure out how to lock it up as exclusively as they wanted.
Eventually Green, their so-called friend, about whom they were allegedly so worried, posted again. After some token relief, they settled down to scream at her and ban her. A few people quietly left at that time, fortunately unnoticed.
The desire to hurt a former friend seemed to provide more motivation for exclusion, and after a great deal more inept flailing, they managed to require passwords. Ironically, the fringe member knew what she was doing and could easily have given them what they wanted, but the core had to have that direct control. They genuinely believed that Green had betrayed them by leaving without notice, and it made them paranoid, and the need to control it themselves kept them from having what they wanted.
Instead of an open group with a few people banned, it became a closed group with only a few people allowed. Now, participation came with prerequisites. Even browsing habits and socializing outside the group came under scrutiny. A new rule required members to hide their UExpress comment historyâallegedly to keep the blogâs URL secret, though it had already been posted publicly multiple times.
Itâs worth noting here that, at this point, there were still multiple Clubhouse users who opposed the cliquish tendencies. One person openly taunted a target with the lack of blog access, and a couple of people pointed out that this wasnât nice. Several others wondered why a blog which was supposed to be for cat pictures had to be locked up. These voices were ignored.
Most of the nastiness was confined to the blog, and some people simply participated in the Andrews McMeel Almanac and ignored the blog. Others liked the blog environment so well that they stopped visiting the Almanac. If the Clubhouse had remained in this state, it might have split in two.
Example Screenshot: NewRequirements.png
The Second Blowup
In March of 2025, word got around that Blogger was planning a cleanup of copyright violations. This caused something of a panicâunderstandable, since the majority of the blogâs content consisted of exactly that. They set about trying to cover their tracks by hand-deleting every copyright violation ever posted to it.
Simultaneously, tensions escalated in the public Andrews McMeel Almanac. Blueâthe only member still posting an original featureâasked people to stop replying to that feature to make fun of her deteriorating eyesight. Most people said theyâd try to remember, but the blog owner, Yellowâwho was now entrenched in her role as gatekeeper and leaderâinstead wanted to hear that she herself had never done that. Blue could not truthfully tell her what she wanted to hear and wanted to avoid highlighting individual thoughtless comments, so instead told her not to worry about it.
What followed was a long, public unraveling. Yellow repeatedly claimed to be under attackânot because she was named, but because she wasnât explicitly exempted. There ensued a very silly conversation in which Blue said repeatedly that she had been speaking in general, and Yellow continued to assume herself the subject. At last Blue told her again very explicitly that she was speaking of an overall pattern, and Yellow replied with a firmly self-centered âI was not aware that I had a patternâŚ.â
Sheâd initially seemed concerned, but once a new Almanac entry had been published and she believed the other party would no longer see her comments, she began circulating messages claiming that she was being punished for some unknown infraction. The target, exasperated by the narcissism, eventually shared screenshots of the misrepresentations with the group.
Yellow then launched into a sustained, dramatic meltdown, culminating in Blueâs removal from the private blog and her eventual retreat from UExpress altogether. The targetâs attempts to deescalate were met with theatrical hostility. The event lasted several days, during which the targetâs attempts at reconciliation were not merely rejectedâthey were punished. Yellow claimed to be afraid to log in, but managed to find enough courage to continue hissing at her targetâs every peace offering.
Disgusted, Blue said that she would post her last material, then be done. Although non-clique readers asked her to stay and continue, she kept her word and left.
Example Screenshot Montage: Cancellation.png
Situational Ethics
When comparing the two blowup episodes, striking irony is evident. An individual who had condemned Green for deleting âtheâ blog now unilaterally removed a member from âherâ blog, without discussion or warning. A few pointed out that they hadnât been consulted about banishment, but Yellow believed it was entirely her own decision. Ownership, it seemed, was flexible. When Green acted, it was betrayal. When Yellow acted, it was mere exercise of rights.
The inconsistencies didnât stop there. Green had been criticized for leaving without notice, yet when Blue provided exactly thatâtwo days' advance warning and a farewell messageâshe was swiftly and publicly attacked. Rather than receiving the grace that allegedly would have been given to Green, she was told that trying to reconcile and saying farewell was âdragging out drama.â There was, it seemed, no correct way to leave the Clubhouse. One could vanish and be called cruel. One could say goodbye and be accused of drama. The standards were fluid, but the outcome was consistent: dissent was punished, and departures were treated as betrayals.
A Climate of Low-Key Intimidation
Equally revealing was the difference in tone among supporters. Almanac readers unaffiliated with the Clubhouse spoke up for Blue plainly. In contrast, self-identified Clubbies who supported her spoke of the matter cautiously, their support wrapped in disclaimers and softening language. The contrast was stark. One group had nothing to fear. The other, whether they realized it or not, had learned not to speak too freely.
Even more tellingly, during Greenâs prior ejection, not a single person spoke up to support Green. That took place on the second blog, so there were no non-Clubbie users free to speak plainly and light the way toward common sense.
The End Stage
The Clubhouse still exists, but with fewer people and less content. UExpress now allows the posting of both images and links, and the copyright violations have been dropped, so the only point of the secret blog is the secrecy. The only things still being posted to the Andrews McMeel Almanac are a simple A-or-B question, âFrom the Vaultâ reposts from the days when people were trying, and the same chitchat found in any forum. There are still some people reading and commenting daily, but only about minutiae. Without the original features which attracted newcomers, the groupâs gradual death is inevitable.
Conclusion
In the end, the Clubhouse wasnât destroyed. It just got sick and curled up to die. There was no mass exodus, no great betrayalâjust a gradual shift from friendly to fussy, from open to exclusive, from laughter and fun to low-stakes squabbling and pettiness.
The blog remains hidden, guarded like a sacred vault of nothing. It and the Andrews McMeel Almanac still host daily chitchat, jokes, and the faint rustle of habit mistaken for community. In the end, it was not destroyed by outsiders, trolls, or platform changes. It was undone, as many groups are, by the very people who cared the mostâjust not always in the right way.
Postscript
After the rest of this essay was written, the Clubhouse had another scuffle. On the secret blog, a well-liked longtime member made a comment critical of a celebrity Yellow liked, and she accused him of blazing hatred. The target commented that if Yellow could learn to ignore comments she doesnât like, the Clubhouse might still have some vanished members. Yellow responded harshly⌠and things were a little different this time. Multiple people told her, plainly, on her own blog, that she had attacked her current target and was in the wrong. Based on general patterns of such groups, the most likely reason is that they no longer value group membership enough to fear losing it.