we occasionally do thot boii deep dives into product spaces + emerging trends @ wtfh + we’re stoked to launch this series w/ the story of @gm
let us know in the comments what ya think + share the 💜
it was just a matter of time
this is a story that had to be seen to believe. one that was summoned x twitter and is probs destined to happen again… for those of us familiar w/ startup lore, it was a familiar story of the ephemerality of social apps
it all started last month on a friday nite (8️⃣/2️⃣7️⃣) w/ a tweet from @gmtheapp
having just gotten outta the hospital, i was looking for ways to pass the time so i started following the gms back to the source + watching the tl fill w/ gm then eventually event gn’s. wtf was happening?
the oracle of vc shitposts @turnernovak slid into the testflight on sunday + fanned the hype by yeeting a poll taken by almost 500 people on gm’s fate: gmi 46% | ngmi 54%
the results we in but why vote against gm? + this lean gm team also seemed primed to fk things up… soon after the poll, gm responded w/ a gm for access twete to get into their tf which got over 6k hits
following turner’s example, many of us rekt our tl’s trying to get into the tf, shilling random gm’s to the twitter gods while the gm team worked to make good on their tf offer. i was up pretty late that sunday night and i assumed gm had pulled off a classsik tech twitter launch hype trick… getting the launch physics right + capturing a wave of new signups they never intended to make good on 🤠 so i resigned myself to occasionally checking the account + even gave em a follow to see what played
in looking around, I noticed whisperings from the the wise twitteratti sliding into comments to remind the gm faithful that this was not the first time this phenomenon had been observed
it also was clear that not everyone was universally psyched on the gm launch
monday was pretty chill, they were obvi strugglin to respond to the tf demand 🌊 but stayed humble on twitter… then at midnight something amazing happened… ofc i was asleep so totally missed it, but 👇
gm to me, gm to gm… i woke up and rushed to slide into the tf … i needed to tell the homies gm… but I also found myself down the rabbit hole of who had revived the joy of single word engagement
gm gang gang
so after crushing my notifications w/ gm’s, i spent a few hrs searching for more on gm… that really didn’t get me anywhere on who the chargers were behind gm other than finding that @viktoriia was somehow involved with @bhwags in the drop. turns out there was still a decent amount of confusion about who was handling this traffic + yeeting gms to everyone. but w/ the virality + user generated shitposting (an elusive form of ugc) it seemed that the 8 person team @gm were onto something magical. by wednesday more vcs were sliding thru, @gabygoldberg was a stan… @zacklukoff crossed over to the consumer darkside… @nivdror added his wife into the tf
some history
producthunt founder + investor @ryanhoover even slid into the mix likely with the memory + familiar feeling of joy from changing the world w/ single words when he gm’s predecessor. it also turned out the internet historians were right that we’d in fact observed this phenomenon years before. in 2014 yo was ph’s first ever launch + took the world by storm
founded by @orarbel, yo quickly grew to millions of users. the og app was built in an 8 hr sprint + and after launching as an april fools joke went on to raise 1.5 m on their #’s. it wasn’t long b4 yo started to show signs of faltering … user numbers were down + sending yo’s just didn’t hit the same as irl. by 2015, the yo team had shipped some new features + were still somehow alive. the years weren't kind to yo tho and by 2018 the team put out a crowdfund on patreon to keep the servers up. tldr: yo didn’t make it
gb gm
almost as quickly as it began, gmtheapp started showing cracks… by late wednesday gm users noticed they were blocked from gm’ing their homies. and the next morning, profiles were locked
freaking out a bit, i almost joined the angry twitter mob but kept my shit together give the team some time to work… then i received the all clear that gm was back up sometime early on thurs + jumped on to catch up on gms
but after hopping on, something felt off… i smashed thru my gm’s + pending friend requests but wondered what was up. at 1:13p we reached the moment i and over 9000 other stans had feared…
the gm team dropped that all our data had potentially been compromised + they were shutting down the app at 11:59 on friday sep 4… what had come as a wave of joy for so many was now slated for gn. gm was ngmi. a day or two after the trauma had settled, brian dropped some impressive faxx on the 5 day
rip sweet gm
the pandy has brought us many a new social experiences but few have lived up to the hype that gm saw in its five day run. the virality + pure twitter signal brought joy for so many of us. gm the app might be gone for now but the memories we shared will live on forever to haunt our notifications.