I'm deleting Partiful
I'm getting spammed constantly with three types of invites:
- Recurring events that I want to go to occasionally, not consistently
- Bands I saw once that gained access to me through co-hosted guest lists
- Individual guests from events who started hosting their own
This is conflicting for me because I always encourage people to host and plan events and I'm genuinely happy for artists if they're able to increase turnout due to Partiful. But I never opted into any of this, especially if I don't know the hosts or most of the people attending.
I started removing myself from events, and then flat out blocking hosts. "Blocking" as in I go to the host's page and click "Opt out of Invites". Even this worked for a while, but new events with new hosts kept popping up! So that's what finally did it for me — playing Wack-a-Mole, blocking people weekly. Disconnecting my Google Calendar helped, but then I was stuck filtering out app notifications.
It's been amazing to meet people through self-organized events in NYC, which is one of my favorite aspects about living here. But now the scale has tipped from useful to nuisance.
This is of course part of my Great Purge but also a social experiment to see if I still get invited to events via text. Or maybe I'll be forgotten about. Another experiment: seeing what turnout looks like at my next gathering. Luma is a solid alternative, or I can go old school with a flyer or an e-invite.
With Partiful, I find it easy to default to yes. Nothing on my calendar for that evening? Cool event? People I like? Done! Now I'll lose out on some possibly important events. When that time comes, I can always just open another account and start fresh.