People in Hawaii take “talk story” seriously. Walaau, shooting the breeze, a rag chew, a chitchat. Whether scheduled or organized around a topic or ignited by a random encounter, conversation is an art and a treasured pastime for locals.

When it happens at a busy cash register or in the middle of the aisle at Costco, it’s problematic. But a new app that is sweeping the globe is facilitating talk story sessions that you can listen to or join from anywhere.

Well, as long as you have an iPhone. (An Android version is, of course, promised.)

Clubhouse, launched in the middle of the pandemic lockdown last spring with over $10 million in venture funding, enjoyed relative obscurity and a somewhat off-putting air of exclusivity for most of its existence. But to say the app has “gone viral,” exploding in popularity in the past few weeks, would be an understatement.

As usual, celebrities drove a lot of that growth: Elon Musk, Oprah, Drake, Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish and other names I’m too unhip to recognize. But don’t let that turn you off like it did me.

In fact, I’m mostly enamored by the way Clubhouse is organizing, democratizing and broadening freewheeling public conversations. As social networks go, it boasts among the most diverse communities out of the gate that I’ve seen in a while.

Clubhouse is sometimes pitched as a combination of a conference call and talk radio, two things that don’t exactly spark joy in everyone. It’s the addition of the social component, smart discovery and, in fact, some intentional limitations that make all the difference.

First of all, the vast majority of Clubhouse users are listeners, not speakers. Unless you organize a “room” to join, you can treat Clubhouse as any other streaming audio app.

Second, in this era of Zoom fatigue, Clubhouse is audio only. You don’t have to worry about brushing your hair or blurring your messy room in the background.

What’s so great about listening to celebrities, or random other people, talk to each other? That’s where the social and discovery magic comes in.

As with most social networks, you build your experience on Clubhouse by following your friends and by following people you like. Your Clubhouse list can include your high school buddies, your favorite podcasters and radio personalities (who are flocking to Clubhouse in droves), and famous people.

Beyond that, as the name suggests, you can also join clubs. Clubs are organized around topics (retail stock investing, spirituality, knitting), fandoms (football, Marvel, Stephen King) or anything, really.

Once you get set up, you can be notified whenever one of your friends, or whenever one of your clubs, starts or schedules a conversation. If Clubhouse were a talk radio station, it would be KYOU, and you would know or like someone on every show and be interested in every topic.

Most intriguing to me is that I discover things about my friends that I didn’t know before, because they might join Clubhouse conversations about topics where we don’t share a common interest.

My fellow gadget-loving friend might turn up in a fishing conversation, and while I might not otherwise care about fishing, hearing someone I know express their passion and expertise about it is surprisingly engaging. Last week I listened as my podcasting friend expounded on his Jewish faith, and I learned a ton about the subject and my friend. I don’t know whether he and I would have come around to that topic independently.

Finally, joining and leaving conversations is effortless. You can raise your hand to speak, you can ignore invitations to speak and you can leave a room using the “leave quietly” button. Nobody gets insulted if you pop in and out. Everybody does it.

I’m not sure that, as some have asserted, Clubhouse is the future of podcasting. But I will say I’ve not listened to many podcasts since I started using Clubhouse. As messy as they can often be, there’s something about a live conversation.

You’ll hear Clubhouse is accessible by invite only, at least for now. But that’s not much of a barrier (compared with being iOS only). Invites are flowing fast and furiously and spreading quickly among various communities, and if one of your geeky friends can’t get you in, I’ll do my best to help.

Then we can get together on Clubhouse to talk about talking about Clubhouse on Clubhouse.

Ryan Kawailani Ozawa is founder of Hawaii Hui LLC, focused on online community and collaboration. Join his open tech chat channel at HawaiiSlack.com.