Exactly a year ago we went viral
By: Vybe Together
Tags: NYC, New Years Eve, Covid 19, Vybe Together, Parties

Vybe Together

Exactly a year ago we went viral internationally.

It was during the height of COVID, and since it was the worst time to start a party app, we SAID we’re building one. And it worked. Kinda.

We launched Vybe Together in early December 2020, operating with a few hundred users — hosting and attending small gatherings around NYC. Around New Year’s Eve, we posted a Tiktok video promoting extravagant parties happening through the app. The next day Taylor Lorenz, a NY Times tech reporter, bashed us on Twitter. As a result, Apple removed our app from the App Store. News sites such as CNN, Fox, BBC, The Guardian, Business Insider, and others, covered the story under titles such as “Apple shut down underground party app” (not just in the USA; the story was covered in top media outlets in China, Indonesia, UK, and others; see links below). But no one talked about the fact that it was all a marketing trick — no extravagant parties happened on the app; honestly, back then barely ANY social encounters happened through the app.

Taylor Lorenz’s tweet

Let’s go back a couple of weeks, to early December 2020; we had this mindset of “there’s no bad PR”, which encouraged us to try out different marketing schemes to get attention from the public. As a reminder, at that point, we had no idea what to do or what to expect; as a small startup with 0 funding we tried everything we could; with no bad intention we thought “ok, since no one is even trying to talk about IRL social life right now, why won’t we?” Attention-grabbing 101. We created a website called banvybetogether.com and ran a protest against ourselves in Washington Square Park in New York (a bit of provocation is never bad). It didn’t work. The people at the park were so chill some even signed up for the app.

Close to New Year’s Eve we wanted to take advantage of the occasion (maybe tackling people’s pain of missing the celebration); we did 2 things: 1) post a video on Tiktok promoting house parties with the slogan “Get your rebel on. Get your party on”. 2) creating hype by adding a doorman for new users and adding them to a waitlist (not letting them into the app). It worked.

The doorman gif we had on the app once people signed up

The video was posted on the evening of December 28th, went viral, and was removed by Tiktok the morning after (that night we got a boost of downloads 😏). Lorenz’s Tweet followed that day, as well as a flood of phone calls from reporters interested in covering the story. That same day Apple removed the app from the App Store and we felt lost. Then came the articles and the death threats. The entire situation shook us from the ground up. We tried to explain to Apple that it was all a marketing scheme, but they didn’t even respond to our inquiries.

In hindsight, we were so focused on going viral that we forgot to plan for the aftermath. We decided to take a break from the city. We went to Miami to talk with some nightlife investors and brag (mind you, Miami was pretty much open despite COVID).

3 weeks later (App Store’s official response time is 48 hours) Apple responded with “no, you can’t be back on App Store”, arguing for safety concerns. We explained that none of the accusations against us were real; we reminded them that we had a doorman on the app and people couldn’t even go on it. They didn’t listen.

We just wanted to take advantage of the virality and the public’s interest, so we quickly built an alternative web app to get the sign-ups without Apple (boo App Store).

For a few months, we tried to tell our story to the public unsuccessfully; no one wanted to f*ck with such a sensitive issue (COVID), and even our arguments against App Store for acting in a non-American way didn’t catch (these guys are a monopoly and act like a dictatorship).

It took Apple 6 months to let us back, and in June 2021 we re-launched. People were so amazing and supportive and helped us build the hype; not to mention their desperation for social life that was lost for so long. We were so eager to see clubs re-open, and were excited to show people what’s popping. We also started a new Tiktok page with our co-founder, Jonathan, talking about nightlife (check out this one which got over 1.4m views).

Now, a year later, we’re Live and better than ever before. Our members, promoters and party people, connect and go out together. The community grows daily and we can’t wait to see what the future will unveil.

So let’s vybe together ✌️

Links to articles about Vybe Together worldwide: