An interview with Jouzt! By Levincible
This interview was conducted by one of our awesome users Levincible. Check them out here on Jouzt -> https://jouzt.com/levincible
What is the story of jouzt? I’m aware that the app and server has been active for a second but how did the idea come together, who came up with the idea and how and why did the rest of the team get on board?
The original idea behind Jouzt was to create a social media app that was competitive and collaborative rather than algorithmic and divisive. We noted that on pretty much all social apps, creators provide the supply (content) and followers provide the demand. We wanted something that felt more like “joining in” rather than “putting yourself out there” as a creator.
We’re a very small team: 1 of us pitched the idea, the others liked it, we started building, we learned a lot, we changed things along the way, and here we are!
What was the biggest inspiration for creating Jouzt, what apps have you taken inspiration from to lay the bare bones down for app what positives did you see on social media art community to make you wanna create such a bustling community like you have now
There is a word called “enshittification” that describes when platforms become worse for users as they get better for shareholders. Our main inspiration was the recognition that most social platforms have become hugely “enshittified”, particularly with the emergence of AI. We wanted to create a space that is human as a refuge and maybe a spark of hope for humanity 😊
We haven’t taken inspiration directly from any specific platforms but we have tried to take what people expect and enjoy from similar apps while adding our own unique spins on things. We remember when the internet was fun and so we try to include the fun parts and exclude the nasty, evil and toxic parts.
On that topic, what have you and the Jouzt team been unsatisfied with on social media apps when it comes to art communities that made you wanna participate in creating one yourself?
Here’s a short list of things we don’t like on other socials:
- When I am talking about something, and then I open a social app and see a post about it.
- Knowing that everything I say or do exists on the servers of a company owned by billionaires
- Seeing generative A.I.
- Knowing that everything I engage with is going to alter my “algorithm”
- Lack of personality (remember how fun myspace profiles were?)
- Knowing that everything I do on other social platforms is designed to make me more addicted to it.
- Seeing the owners and CEO’s of these platforms investing heavily in political campaigns, monopolising industries and investing in A.I
- The constantly shifting policies that grant these companies more and more rights to train AI on people’s content
The list goes on but I’ll leave it there 😊
What was it like setting up and maintaining Jouzt, any challenges struggles and or hardships that ever made you second guess yourself, such as i know running an app with a lot of art being uploaded a day cant be cheap nor easy, what made you wanna keep going.
You’re right that it isn’t cheap! Jouzt is purely funded by us from our own pockets (we aren’t rich but we have other jobs). The project does take a big financial toll on us but to be honest, we believe in it. We genuinely believe that the world needs something like what we know we can turn Jouzt into, especially now.
On another note what are your opinions on the Jouzt community now versus then, as the interviewer i have been on Jouzt for a second but I’m aware of those who have been present longer, as well as on the official discord server there have been users designated as “Jouzt helpers” how did that come about as well.
to be honest the community has been amazing since day 1. The only difference is there were a few amazing people at first, now there are more!
Jouzt helpers came about when we noticed that a lot of artists can benefit from encouragement. Our helpers do a great job of supporting and encouraging those who join, while also helping with moderation, ideas and platform feedback. We’re very thankful to everyone who goes the extra step to support what we’re doing with Jouzt 😊
Several artist have been “sponsored” and “partnered” with Jouzt, how has that come about and how has that improved the overall quality of things within the community at large.
Companies with lots of money will pay influencers to reach more people. We don’t have the kind of money that large influencers charge and we also wanted to support smaller creators. So we’ve been experimenting with sponsoring some users to help them reach more users while also helping spread the word a bit about Jouzt. It’s been great so far but this program is still in an experimental phase.
Web comics are very prominent on artist community back in the day and are still posted all over artist communities would jouzt be interested in added dedicated sections for web comics or comics in general, as well as sections dedicated for mediums such as animation, writing or music.
We recently added the ability for people to reorder collections so that people can present comics within those. Since Jouzt is technically not just an art platform we try to ensure all features can cater for users from all demographics. E.g. whether you want to present a web comic, or a series of dance moves, or something else.
How does one enforce the “anti ai” rule that Jouzt is very heavy on, as artist we are well aware on how many artist are exploited and unrecognized by those who use images without the original artist permission (tho its unlikely that any artist would give such blessing) how did that work back when the app first launched and how do you expect to improve anti ai measures
Right now we have a fairly effective process:
- Our community and mods can report any post that could be AI.
- We have a look at the users profile, the post etc.
- If we can’t make a determination we simply contact the author and ask them for some kind of suitable proof. The post remains flagged in the meantime if it was reported more than once.
- If they don’t respond or can’t provide proof we remove the content.
The other way we combat this is with our culture. If someone wants to try to infiltrate our processes to pass off some A.I content as human made then that’s a lot of effort for an outcome that is quite sad. We moderate the platform regularly and with the help of our community and thankfully it’s fairly easy to tell a genuine user/creator.
Beyond that we are patiently keeping an eye on emerging technologies that can reliably assist with these processes.
As the current time of this interview it’s halloween season, any contest or things going on that you’d like to shine a light upon and any other seasons you guys at the Jouzt team are thinking of making events for.
We have been running some fun Halloween themed challenges for #jouztober, including a pumpkin “carving” art challenge and more. We make a post with a challenge and ask users to Jouzt it with their own posts. This is something any user can do that’s part of the fun of Jouzt and we’ve seen some great challenges also being created by our users 😊
What about that thing with Clip Studio Paint? A while ago, Jouzt was given several “semi-premium” clip studio paint subscriptions to give out to a specific amount of Jouzt users, how did that come about, and how has the affected the community as large, does the team have any thing planned like that in the future?
Yes we were very grateful to Clip Studio Paint for giving us 100 debut licenses to distribute to our members. They were snapped up very quickly! We reached out to them and they were open to supporting artists in our community. We are currently working with them on another collaboration that will hopefully be announced soon :)
Art is a diverse and amazingly spectacular thing with a multitude of mediums, such as music, film, writing, architecture, and so much more, have you though of making any dedicated sections to allow such to be posted on the app or to promote such art on Jouzt.
Technically this can happen now. We removed categories and replaced them with hashtags so that people can populate anything they like! From music, dance, architecture to pet pics, fitness or memes.
Jouzt has the potential to be as big as Instagram, Tik Tok or Facebook. We have started with art because we believe it holds a lot of value for this community but we will expand our messaging at some point to make more communities aware of the awesomeness of Jouzt. We just want to ensure that we don’t ruin the community in the process so we are taking a very planned approach to all of this.
What is the apps stance on more suggestive or explicit artwork allowed on other apps such as instagram or twitter, art such as that can slip through crack on some social media platforms or border on a fine line for what appropriate or not, what is Jouzt current policies about such art, whats the lines that have to be drawn in the sand between artistic purposes and appealing to a certain community, care to comment?
This is a bit of a grey area and an ongoing discussion. We know there is a demand for artists who want to share NSFW art. I’ll break down the considerations below:
- We are rated for 16+ on the app stores. We must comply with this.
- We want Jouzt to be accessible and enjoyable by anyone
- We don’t want the Jouzt community to become pigeon holed into anything specific. E.g. if the platform becomes flooded by one type of art or posts it can be harder to then expand beyond that.
For now, our general rule of thumb is, if it’s not ok for a 16y/o it’s not ok to post and might be removed.
What are your plans for the future of Jouzt? Anything you can let me in on for the community to get them excited!
We have HEAPS of exciting plans. We’re soon launching “public chats” (it might already be out by the time this is published). This will be our first step toward providing useful community building features for our users. They will also have some fun features that I don’t think you’ll find on any other social platform!
More holistically we want to expand beyond just art while continuing to put our users first. As I mentioned above. We are genuinely wanting to build something that we believe the world needs. As we grow we will face challenges but with enough community support we believe we can ensure that Jouzt remains user-first and can create real solutions for people, without becoming part of the problem.
Are any of you guys artists if any of you are are there any pieces you’d like to share?
Yes! All of the Jouzt UI was designed by us, as well as any marketing material you see, and every profile cosmetic you see was hand made by our team. We don’t put our names on things as we create all this for Jouzt. Additionally, we aren’t at a stage in our growth yet where we want to have our personal details shared all over the internet (we respect our own privacy as much as that of our users). Right now Jouzt doesn’t make any money, but if we can get to the stage where we can treat Jouzt as a “real job” then we very much look forward to sharing more of ourselves with the world 😊. That said, we’re very active in the Discord community and the Jouzt app as you know and love meeting and engaging with our users there every day.
Will I ever be able to make a Jouzt frame?
This is also part of an ongoing discussion. The tricky part is scalability. We would love to let users make their own frames but we would need to implement this for all users. Which means we would need to moderate/approve every frame a user creates, ensure quality and formatting etc. to prevent a baseline of quality for the platform. Alternatively we could approve only certain users but then we don’t want to give users the negative experience of not being approved if their art isn’t yet ready to be something that is offered as a frame to all users.
We do have ideas around all of this though and we are working to see what we can make work!
Lastly what would the team like to say to the community, any thanks or wishes for the talented and hard working artists who post here on the app everyday and have found a sorta found family on the platform?
Yes, a huge thanks to everyone who has been supporting Jouzt, but more importantly supporting the other artists and creators on Jouzt. We built the venue, you guys make it a party.
Keep creating, because that’s what humans do. There is an oversaturation of inauthenticity out there. Find and create real spaces, fill them with real things. The stuff in your brain deserves to be seen.
We’re trying our best to use our skills and passions to contribute to improving online spaces and creating something good for the world, but the ultimate power lies with you. Our attention is the currency of online social spaces and many of us give it to corporations who may not have the best intentions, because there isn’t an alternative. We’re building an alternative and we hope enough people are willing to join us! 😊
