- A new social media app for Gen Z is reviving the format of early social media apps like MySpace.
- The app's founder Tiffany Zhong, wants to bring back socializing to social media over curated feeds.
- It's already amassed a waitlist of half a million people before its set to be released in June.
A new social media app targeting Gen Z, Nospace, is set to be released in June, the company told BI. It calls itself "The most social network," — as it prioritizes users socializing with friends over posting viral hits.
Nospace was founded by Tiffany Zhong, a Gen Zer herself. Zhong is no stranger to the startup world; she founded Pineapple Capital, an early-stage consumer VC firm, and Zebra IQ, a Gen Z intelligence and research company.
Her new app jumps on Gen Z's love of Y2K and harkens back to a simpler age of social media. And it's already racked up a waitlist of 500,000 people, the company told BI.
Instead of stressing over carefully curated posts, the app encourages users to share their stream-of-consciousness thoughts on what they're eating, gaming, streaming, reading, and watching.
The app is primarily a text-based feed, with the option to switch to seeing posts just from friends.
Each profile is customizable: users can choose colorful backgrounds and text, and they can share their relationship status and interests. It's a less professional-looking version of social media than the big incumbents, like Instagram.
"They can be as weird and as authentic as they want" on the app, she previously told BI.
In recent years, social media users have become increasingly frustrated with the lack of fun online, as professional posts have taken over socializing with friends.
"It's really bizarre to me that everyone's gone to this place in their mind that content has to be so curated," Tati Bruening, a Gen Z content creator, previously told BI. "So curated that you can't show what you're cooking for dinner, because that's not cool enough."
Nospace wants to recapture some of the magic of social media apps like MySpace and early Facebook, which centered on friendships and making new connections. The App Store preview shows that users can pin a list of their close friends to their profile, much like MySpace's "top 8" friends feature.
"Remember how fun the internet was before all the algos and ads? we do too… so we're bringing it back," the app's App Store description reads.
Zhong is a seasoned social media pro who knows how to appeal to Gen Z trends. Through her previous companies, she's advised companies like Snapchat, Levi Strauss, and Google on how to reach a younger Gen Z audience.
"People crave connection more than ever," said Zhong, previously told BI.
"All the social-media platforms are more so media than they are social. That's why people hang out in the comment sections of TikTok," she said.