In a social media panorama dominated by obnoxious advertisements, algorithms, and AI, Letterboxd has stood agency as a cult favourite.
The app—which acts as a digital diary for customers to log and depart opinions of any film they watch—has been described by a Letterboxd spokesperson as “much less a social media platform, extra a group.” It’s resisted including the infinite scroll function that now appears omnipresent on-line, as an alternative letting customers curate their very own feeds of associates and standard reviewers.
However information {that a} controlling stake in Letterboxd may very well be going up on the market has customers frightened that their on-line protected haven might go the way in which of different resold apps like X.
Canadian holding firm Tiny, which acquired a 60% stake in Letterboxd in 2023, is trying to promote its majority share of the platform, Semafor reported. Potential consumers embrace Versant, the father or mother firm of CNBC and MS NOW, and the Hollywood e-newsletter The Ankler.
Beneath new possession, Letterboxd might rework in any variety of methods—and the platform’s present customers aren’t enthusiastic about any of them.
Social media catastrophizes
When information of the potential sale hit social media, Letterboxd’s avid customers had been instantly up in arms. One user referred to as Letterboxd “our final vanguard of fine social media.”
A standard nervousness amongst Letterboxd customers was that the app would get bought to some billionaire who couldn’t care much less in regards to the platform’s mission of providing “a single place to showcase your life in movie.” Many clearly had flashbacks to the notorious 2022 sale of Twitter to Elon Musk, which reworked a once-beloved social website right into a much-maligned platform ridden with monetized blue checkmarks and reply guys summoning Grok beneath each submit.
“Letterboxd can’t go to one of many billionaires,” that consumer continued. “I can’t do it. I can’t take it.”
“If some company buys Letterboxd and I begin getting hit with 40 unskippable advertisements each hour, I’m deleting the app and by no means touching it once more,” wrote another user. “We lastly had an app that truly improved our lives, man.”
One poster summed up the potential sale with a Letterboxd-style review: simply half a star out of 5.
Others mirrored on Letterboxd’s influence on the movie trade, together with its fostering of affection for traditional and arthouse movies amongst younger individuals, with the largest cohort of the app’s customers being between 18 and 25 years previous as of 2024.
“To the diploma that we now have a thriving tradition of cinema, it’s largely due to this web site,” one user wrote. “It’s one of many few issues monied pursuits haven’t ruined. Promoting it will be a catastrophe.”
Studying the tremendous print
Although Letterboxd customers had been fast to catastrophize, a sale of the app may not be such a catastrophe in spite of everything. When Semafor broke the information of the potential sale, it famous that cofounder Matthew Buchanan retains veto rights to any potential purchaser, which means he might preserve Letterboxd’s mission in place.
When the corporate bought a controlling stake to Tiny in 2023, Buchanan advised Letterboxd customers in a blog post that “apart from the possession change, and in step with Tiny’s core working values, little or no else will change.”
Theoretically, a brand new sale would preserve that philosophy and depart what individuals love in regards to the platform intact. However till the ink has dried, the way forward for Letterboxd stays up within the air.
Neither Letterboxd nor Tiny have replied to Quick Firm’s request for remark.
