Mystery Is A Powerful Tool — Use It Wisely

Clubhouse is the latest ‘thing’ that you’ve either heard of, or you haven’t. Feel left out? That’s exactly the point. The company behind it are harnessing FOMO for profit.

Mystery abounds — you have to apply to join. Only if you’re accepted can you invite a few others.

It’s arrived in a friends’ WhatsApp group. The glee with which the sender luxuriated in the exclusivity was unnerving.

Everyone is getting excited about being ‘in’ (not what they’ll discuss in their invite-only audio discussion).

We’re back in the playground.

Contrast with our friends in Australia (I’m in the UK) who fooled a load of us by sending different locally-sourced (to us) Christmas presents, but with no explanation who sent them.

It took weeks of sleuthing before we solved the puzzle.

Mystery has the power to include and embrace, or exclude and corrupt.