Culture
The Huglist is a social media app for celebrating COVID-19 vaccinations
The founders of the dating app Chorus now want everyone to wrap their (vaccinated) arms around one another.
As COVID-19 vaccine rollouts continue, more and more people are finally planning actual physical reunions with friends and loved ones (for some, this never stopped, of course). Sure, you could individually message or call each and every person you’ve been meaning to catch up with, but where’s the fun in that? With this in mind, the makers behind a new app called “The Huglist” hope to inject a bit of digital celebration into the logistics of attempting to return to some sense of normalcy.
The Huglist’s name pretty much says it all: It’s a service designed to organize friends and family members as they begin planning physical hangouts in an increasingly vaccinated, post-COVID world. Created over the span of six weeks by the makers of the matchmaking app, Chorus, The Huglist works via an invite-only system (so, no, this isn’t the way to meet your post-quarantine fling). Users can specifically reach out to the people they miss the most, but given the communal aspect to Chorus, Huglist reps hinted that could change in the future.
Hug it out — The Huglist will also provide a space for users to refresh their statuses to detail vaccine date updates, meetups, and other events they are excited about. Sure, pretty much every other social media app out there is designed to provide the same services, but none of them claim to have gotten their start purely from the altruistic angle of celebrating the nearing defeat of a once-in-a-generation pandemic... not to mention, The Huglist devs swear no geolocation data is needed while the app is used, which is far more than we can say for some of the other bigger social media companies out there. Curious minds can check out some images of the app and its interface below.
Plans beyond COVID-19 — According to Emily J. Smith, the founder of both Chorus and The Huglist, their new app is designed to survive beyond society’s immediate reopening. “Absolutely,” they said in an email when asked if were plans for non-COVID usage in the future. “The Huglist is owned and operated by Chorus, whose whole mission is to strengthen relationships, both platonic and romantic. So we are definitely planning ways to make the networks and communities we facilitate on The Huglist relevant in a post-Covid world.”
The Huglist is available for free on both iOS and Android platforms now, so get ready to hug it out. It’s been a long time coming, after all.
