The power of fomo. It is what it is.

I started to realize that I was much more introverted than I thought right after graduating college. I value a lot of alone time where I can be by myself, be selfish, and do everything that I want to do. Of course, that’s always easier said than done due to the phenomenon of FOMO.

We’ve all been through the traditional fomo situation. You are feeling tired or simply just don’t feel like doing something with your friends, but the fear of missing out on a fun activity or night leaves you going anyways.

Of course, fomo comes in all shapes and sizes. Fear of missing out on that hot stock/company forces people to make poor investment decisions. Fear of missing out on the perfect opportunity forces companies to release products early prior to being ready.

The latest fomo trend in the tech world has been Clubhouse. The voice app is some sort of country club for the Silicon Valley and tech elite to host discussions about business, life, and politics. The problem? There are only 5,000 invites sent and you’re probably not part of the list.

Exclusivity seems to be the latest trend in tech and I can see why. Hundreds of thousands have flocked to Twitter to try to find invites to Clubhouse. The fomo is real and a powerful marketing tool.

Enter 👁👄👁. What is it? It is what it is.

Okay okay, had to get it out of the way. Sorry. But really what is eye lips eye?

Put simply, a clever bunch of tech employees decided to band together in a sort of satirical marketing campaign. What started as an inside joke turned out to be a viral Twitter campaign where people were added 👁👄👁 to their Twitter names and replying “It what it is” to nearly every mention of the emojis.

There were fake app screenshots and the website collected hundred of thousands of email addresses over the span of 48 hours. It was clearly a mockery of the recent fomo in apps such as Clubhouse.

Upon release, the truth was revealed and there was no app. No product release. It was simply a link to donate to one of three BLM causes. Once you did, you were granted the ability to buy merchandise that would further support these causes.

A brilliant and hilarious marketing campaign that weaponized unreasonable and childish fomo in adults ended up raising over $100k for some amazing causes.

I am not sure what the legacy of 👁👄👁 will ultimately on the industry. I am hoping for positive change as we realize just how powerful our tech community can be. I also hope that it’s a wake up call to our community that perhaps there are more important things in life than being on a list for an app.

Fomo is real. It is what it is.