Noplace is reminiscent of older platforms like MySpace in more ways than one.
On Friday afternoon, my bosses asked if I'd like to test out and explain Noplace, a new social media platform that shot to the top of the Apple Store charts when it switched from referral-only to free-for-all. When they asked me to do that with BeReal two years ago, I ended up falling in love with the app and using it with my friends all summer long, so I was excited. Maybe Noplace, billed as "MySpace for Gen Z," would turn out the same—a fun platform for my friends and me to play with for the rest of the warm months. I downloaded it, impressed by its commitment to the customizable themes and colors that defined my social media use when I was a kid coding pet pages on Neopets and learning HTML so my LiveJournal could reflect on the outside how I felt on the inside. Here's what I found.
Noplace is bright and colorful, promising to connect people with similar interests. You get a profile page, which you're able to customize by changing the colors and even the bezels around the text boxes. Like old-timey Facebook, there's a "wall" where your friends can post public messages to you. Like LiveJournal, there are sections built into your profile where you can announce what you're eating, listening to, or doing. Like MySpace, you can publicly rank your top friends. Like any other platform, there is a direct-messaging component. And like X, there's a tab where you can post what you're thinking or feeling and strangers can respond.
I messed around on the app for three days, but never quite figured out how it connects people with similar interests. On Noplace, your interests are called "stars," so I selected a few stars from the categories it offered up: Fortnite under "video games," for instance. I noticed a lot of the possible stars were vague—"astrology," "LGBTQ," "reading"—so I created my own in the search bar. I went with baseball and the Minnesota Twins, then added spin class, too. But there was never a way to find other people who chose those stars or connect with them. They just appeared on my profile. It was a little sad, but I'm not ruling out the possibility that I just couldn't figure it out.
I started posting on the public, feed-style forum right away after quickly throwing together a profile that was all purple, featured a picture of me, and alerted any potential new friends to the fact that I was listening to "Whenever, Wherever" by Shakira while eating a package of dried seaweed snacks. It really did feel very 2004. I couldn't believe I used to spend so much time on real-time updates back then, especially considering I was doing it all from a desktop computer, tethered to a giant monitor in my basement in the era before smartphones.
I inquired about how to raise my "level" and someone kindly responded to let me know I had to be more interactive on the app to accomplish that. I tapped their profile. They were a young teen. I started tapping more profiles I found in the feed. Everyone appeared to be between 14 and 20. It made me uncomfortable. I felt like an interloper at best and a creep at worst. Not ideal. I decided to force my friends to join, so I could at least be among some peers. That part was easy: I just had to tap an "invite friends" button in the search tab, then send them all a text. Further proof that I was way too old to be doing this came when I noticed that even after I imported my contacts, no one from the list appeared to already be on the app. Matters became more dire when two of my best friends who use Android phones told me there was no Android app at all. It was up to me and my iPhone-using pals to infiltrate on our own.
While I waited for them to set up their profiles and add me back, I commenced shitposting. One teen asked, publicly, if they should watch Yellowjackets and I said "nah." Another posted with a hint of melancholy, saying "sorry for the inconvenience." I told them it was no problem, though I had no idea what they were talking about. The caliber of posts was also really reminiscent of my formative years on Xanga and LiveJournal: There was a lot of complaining about parents, expressing ennui, and self-identifying to the point of ridiculousness. It was all, to be blunt, basic kid stuff, exactly the same as what I was posting 20 years ago. Effort was clearly being taken to create the perfect layout, the most comprehensive and stylish bio, and the edgiest posts. Every once in a while, I'd see someone older post something like, "Is there anyone my age on here?" The answer was no.
I don't think you need to join Noplace if you're an adult—at least not now. Like Facebook, I assume this will quickly be overrun by cringey adults. We are now the cringey adults. The problem with this app is, at least as it stands, there is no real division between kids and older people. Everyone posts to the same big feed and, as I mentioned, there isn't much of a way to sort and find people with similar interests or demographics. You're posting alongside 14-year-olds while they do the standard 14-year-old stuff of trying to figure out who they are and who they want to portray themselves to be.
I was able to attain a Level 3 just by posting a bunch, but I got bored pretty quickly. The allure of constantly updating my profile to reveal my relationship status, current snack, and favorite song didn't last long, especially since it felt strange to be broadcasting that information to children.
It certainly has potential and was fun for a while. Like I said, adults will infiltrate this thing and I'm sure it will become more striated. I can see the appeal of going back to our roots, playing with profile designs and sharing inconsequential updates about unserious matters, but for now, you can't post links or photos. There's nothing mature or constructive to find. There's no way to link with anyone you have anything in common with. Despite the fact everyone is posting together, it feels a little lonely, at least for those of us who lived through the first great era of customization.
