Wait 24 hours.
*Update March 23rd, 2021: In an effort to stay up-to-date with news regarding Dispo, here is the latest on investors distancing themselves from the app as well as a free-fall in the number of active current users based on controversy surrounding David Dobrik and his YouTube crew. Will continue to update as needed.
When was the last time that you eagerly awaited the release of a ticket, a clothing or sneaker line or even limited edition food? Waiting brings a sense of anticipation and much needed brightness to one’s day. Now combine that eager waiting with images and suddenly you have Dispo, David Dobrick’s new app. A version of this has been around since last year, but recently, a beta opened with the community aspect. Currently, you can only get into the app using an invite, meaning the app remains relatively small and cozy for a community and that same app has purportedly been offered a hefty 100M valuation.
Dispo is short for “disposable camera” and the delay is meant to mimic a nostalgic wait for images to develop, slowly, in a photo lab. As one of the early users in this app (Dispo handle @goldie), I have been interested in how users tell stories and share their daily lives with each other across the globe. As we all waited until the 9am (in whichever time zone), Dispo users find themselves creating communities on Twitter, Slack, Discord and more. Some users have even created NFT (art) on various platforms like Zora. I interviewed and compiled quotes from early users and the creative team at Dispo and here are their stories and why Dispo feels special to them.
“Dispo has been designed intentionally as community-first. Over the last few years as social media has become unbearably hostile, toxic and anxiety-inducing we’ve seen people migrate to private group-chats. With Dispo rolls, you can have these shared spaces be private or public, silly or serious, and collaborate with friends or strangers with a lot of space to be playful and experiment. I’ve loved seeing people’s creativity come back to life - most of that creativity sparking from people reacting to each other, taking turns evolving the narrative of what a roll is for, and exploring different ways to build on top of what the other is doing.
MORE FOR YOU
The original inspiration for Dispo has already been talked about: Parties, and I knew that would be the most obvious. But while most people are still isolated, in lieu of IRL events, some of my favorite examples have been themed challenges or games: A roll entirely made of shadow-puppets, ‘guess what this close-up photo is of’, “for lent I gave up ________,” and of course, “Passing notes in Dispo class” which is entirely made of people taking photos of handwritten notes as visual messages for the group, a creative way to get around the fact that we don’t have DMs yet. They nearly kicked me out because I accidentally posted several cat photos there by mistake. My bad.” - Briana Hokanson (Bhoka), Head of Design at Dispo, Dispo handle @bhoka
“For me personally, bringing people together has always come naturally. The way our Dispo profiles have been designed, allows me to join and showcase so many uniquely themed rolls. The hope is, as more people visit my profile, they’re excited so see and connect with all these wonderful people in our community.” - TJ Taylor, VP of Community at Dispo, Dispo handle @tjt
“Building stories with the community together, reveling in the casual glimpses into lives we get thru Dispo.” - Luke Yun, Director of Social at Oura Ring, Dispo handle @bloom
“Chat with your audience instead of making up a persona, then you’ll know the raw emotions of the story.” - Katya Sapozhnina, Product Manager at Octane AI, Dispo handle @katya
“Other social networks tend to create an environment where perfect looking stories thrive. Dispo on the other hand has tapped into the reality that the best stories usually aren’t the ones where nothing goes wrong.” - Jackson Dame, Dispo handle @dame
“Composition is everything.” - Amanda Luke, Dispo handle @allintheory
“Dispo has brought the magic of sharing life from a raw, personal perspective without the pressure of it looking perfect.” - Anyha Garcia, Dispo handle @anyha
“One of the best parts of Dispo is the community. For example, in the roll “guess the story behind the picture,” folks post musings of their daily lives, and leave it up to the community to both develop and narrate a story in the comments.” - Jason Cho, Dispo handle @jcho
“It’s the interactive storytelling for me… the community hide and seek / scavenger hunt approach that feels hyper localized and global all at the same time… so fun.” - Terry O’Neal, Brand Manager, Dispo handle @terry
“Dispo allows you to play with time in your rolls. Needing to wait until the next day for pictures to develop allows users to come up with creative roll themes where pictures added today can depend on the ones that were added previously.” Jeff, Dispo handle @jeffistyping
“Start with Why. Storytelling through photography begins with the audience and ends with your purpose. Who is the audience and what do you want to tell them? Answering questions like this will help you crystalize your message. Get on the ground. Composition is everything for storytelling through photography. Find unique angles and try looking at the world in a different way. - Janine Sickmeyer, Dispo handle @janine
“I think a great way to share a story through Dispo, could be through holidays. Cultural representation is best shown through all the permutations that people interpret a holiday with their own traditions. I created a Chinese New Year roll for myself the day the beta dropped, but would have loved to see other celebrations that people had with people across the world.” - Diana Morgan, Community Management professional, Dispo handle @grassrootscmgr
“I'd say Dispo is helping me to be more purposeful about what i want to capture, why, and where i want to put it - which is the opposite of every other social media i'm on which thrive on immediacy.” - Sam Oshins, Community + Social Media Manager at Shuffle, Dispo handle @oshins
“Dispo reminds me of the energy of that one summer everyone was playing Pokémon go, and I think that’s exactly what’s needed in social media 2.0 since we haven’t felt this joy, authenticity, and community in way too long.” - Alice Ma, Entrepreneur in social audio, Dispo handle @alice
“The best part that I like is checking the roles at 9 AM and getting pings from friends and in all group chats.” - Rahul Chhabra, Social media apps creator for Gen Z, Dispo handle @rahulchhabra07
“Dispo removes the urge to post “perfect” pictures which leads to more authentic storytelling.” - Mike Turck, CTO at Fion Technologies, Dispo handle @super
“It’s low pressure and I’m excited to open the app every morning to see pictures developed with Dispo. We don’t need to keep an eye on it. that’s a huge difference from other social media, I think.” - Namika Hamasaki, Brand & Product Designer, Dispo handle @haiji505
“I like that Dispo allows a different sort of curation than I get out of other apps, I can be very deliberate and contribute to rolls that have a specific purpose and message or I can just have fun and put a ton of dog pictures in another. The whole expression is a lot more freeform and creative.” - Joe "joemag" Magdalena, Game Designer, Dispo handle @joemag
“The stories we currently tell on social media are often so purposely constructed, which can kill creativity - the real power of storytelling comes from authenticity, which I think we can finally achieve through the personal, decentralized, and genuine nature of Dispo.” - Erifili Gounari, Founder at The Z Link, Dispo handle @erifili
“Dispo on its own may not be a “storytelling tool,” but it enables storytelling by forcing authenticity. Unlike Instagram, you’re forced to tell a true story on Dispo. You can choose how to frame it, but you can’t Photoshop it or add a filter.” - Shlomo, Dispo handle @xyz
The Dispo app brings back the feeling of nostalgia, imperfection and waiting calmly for images to develop overnight.
