Technology discussions often center around quantifiable metrics such as daily or monthly active users, impressions, and click-through rates. However, one area that tends to be underrepresented is the cultural relevance of a product.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!The most impactful products are not necessarily those with the largest reach or the most polished features. Instead, they often represent a snapshot of a specific moment in time—messy, unpolished, and even unworkable by today’s standards—but they capture the essence of what a platform was, is, or could be.
For instance, 4Chan attracts individuals with poor social skills, while MySpace nostalgically signals that its users are over 25. TikTok Shop has become synonymous with scams, and transactions conducted exclusively in Bitcoin often carry a dubious connotation. These products, while varied, share a common thread: culture imbues them with modern-day context, enabling them to spread rapidly throughout society.
The hallmark of a culturally successful platform is its ability to transcend its original design. Content from the platform often becomes representative of the app itself, with even a screenshot of the user interface communicating context to someone who has never used the app.
Take Pinterest, for example. Users frequently save screenshots from other platforms, and Pinterest itself pushes users to create videos that can be shared on TikTok. There’s a cultural interchange between platforms—TikTok-branded posts on Pinterest, tweets used in memes, and BeReal’s demand for authenticity all reinforce this idea. BeReal memes, in particular, have gained traction because they capture not just the bizarre moments within the app but also the cultural expectation of authenticity.
Cultural relevance extends to past platforms as well. MySpace’s “Top 10 Friends” feature still resonates today, demonstrating that some features become lasting cultural markers, even after the platform itself fades.
This phenomenon even applies to non-social media platforms like Cash App and Venmo, both of which have earned reputations that transcend their functional purpose. Cash App became known for enabling questionable activities, such as buying drugs, while Venmo was linked to political scandals, simply because of how its features were used. The platforms themselves could be replaced, but the cultural legacies they’ve created are irreplaceable.
Consider apps like Ask.fm or After School, which became infamous for promoting bullying. These apps, though damaging, also became cultural markers of growing up in an interconnected world. They reflect how young people learned about others’ brutal opinions, often anonymously.
There’s an interesting emotion tied to the revival of old products. Many times, new apps are merely nostalgic reconceptualizations of software long past its prime, like MySpace knock-offs or iPhone Tamagotchis. While they may elicit some emotional response, they often fail to carry the same cultural weight as the originals.
This brings us to the ongoing battle between Threads and X (formerly Twitter). Both platforms aim to recreate the scale of Twitter but through their own cultural lenses. However, neither can replace the original Twitter. The identity of Twitter was never about its features, but the chaotic, real-time unfolding of events—something that cannot be easily replicated by Threads or X. People don’t join platforms for features; they join for cultural relevance.
Twitter succeeded because it was the place to witness things happening in real time, from fights to breaking news. That kind of relevance isn’t easily replicated, and while Truth Social managed to carve out its own cultural niche (albeit for a specific political party), both Threads and X are still struggling to find a similar resonance.
Cultural relevance in app development goes beyond features. It encompasses the product’s philosophy, the people involved, the features maintained, and the moderation policies in place. Building cultural relevance means creating a product that becomes an integral part of its community’s identity.
Take Superfan, a young app built on the premise of a weekly Spotify Wrapped experience. It has pivoted toward monetizing fan-artist interactions, recognizing that people who closely identify with artists are likely to embrace deeper connections with them. Superfan’s model leverages cultural relevance by enabling users to share their listening habits and tag artists, creating a cycle of engagement that benefits both fans and artists.
For Superfan to fully succeed, it must make its artist-fan content as culturally significant as the music statistics it started with. If it can create a visually compelling, shareable form of content that resonates with users, it will have cemented its cultural relevance.
Success in the tech world is often defined by metrics like DAUs and revenue. However, there is immense value in products that eschew traditional metrics and prioritize cultural impact, which is emotional rather than numerical.
Ultimately, cultural impact may be the only way to humanize software in a world where software increasingly defines the human experience. The apps and websites we encounter leave emotional imprints, and their cultural significance shapes how we remember them, long after the code itself fades from view.
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