Is there life beyond Facebook? I’m talking about social life of course. Even admitting that you want to leave the social network founded by Mark Zuckeberg, and maybe even Instagram, which is part of the same group, what alternatives do we have? Some indication comes to us from the story of Raya, it is the secret social network of the rich and famous, of celebrities. It was founded, obviously in secret, in February 2015 and apparently grew a lot during the pandemic. Apparently because Raya is like Brad Pitt’s Fight Club: Raya’s first rule is that it’s forbidden to talk about Raya. The second, is that if you are part of it and talk about it or worse you take a screenshot of the app (only for iOS), it is immediately ejected.
In short, it is a private social network that is in fact a club for a few. What purpose does it serve? To connect with people like you who could change your life. Depending on your point of view, some consider it a “Tinder for the Illuminati”, an app for sentimental encounters; others, a Linkedin for celebrities looking for work. The so-called VIPs seem to be very intrigued by this small closed world (here a list): some time ago there was a lot of talk about the woman who had blocked Ben Affleck thinking it was a fake profile only to discover that it was Ben Affleck. (the woman was quickly expelled for sharing the story on TikTok).
Behind Raya is Daniel Gendelman, 36, who after choosing absolute silence has decided to speak with the New Yorker. He said that the idea came to him once when he felt alone at a startup event in Tel Aviv, which he founded Raya in his apartment in West Hollywood, that he thought of it as a club where you ask to be admitted by bringing references and pay 10. dollars a month for the service. Users would be less than a million, which is nothing compared to Facebook’s three billion. But it works for that very reason. Raya tells us something about the possible future of social media: many, small and closed.
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