A more intimate internet
Why Locket’s popularity signals a shift toward private, personal feeds
In my conversations with Gen Z, one thing comes up again and again: they’re over performing online. They’re tired of chasing validation through likes, of seeing content pushed to them by algorithms instead of being sent to them by their friends, of opening apps that leave them chasing a dopamine hit and feeling worse than before. This generation grew up on the Internet, but they’re looking for ways to reclaim it.
That’s why I’m intrigued by Locket. The smartphone widget, which connects Gen Zers around the world, feels reminiscent of the early days of social media. It’s intimate, playful, and personal. The app allows users to send their close friends photos that appear directly on their home screen, something typically reserved for the weather or step counts. Locket is a quick, low-effort way for friends to stay connected without the pressure of likes, shares, or comments, and without needing a massive network of followers.
In my listening sessions and Reality Checks with The Up and Up community, Gen Zers often voice frustration with the way social media algorithms dictate what they see. Locket offers a refreshing alternative by bypassing the typical “For You Page” algorithm, bringing back a sense of authenticity, connection, and control. Much like BeReal, which prompts users to share an unfiltered photo to friends from both the selfie and back-facing cameras 1x a day and soared in popularity in 2022, it’s clear that social media apps promoting unfiltered authenticity are having a moment.
In fact, part of Locket’s success has been due to its users, who have taken to TikTok to showcase how they are using it to create a more intentional internet. Here’s an example:
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Globally, according to Locket, 70% of its user base is between the ages of 13 and 22. In the U.S., Locket’s audience is even younger, with nearly half of the American user base between the ages of 13-17.
I was introduced to Locket by Kyle Sanok, who heads up consumer growth and marketing for the company and is a college classmate and friend. To learn more, I spoke with Kyle and Locket founder Matt Moss about the community they’ve built.
Here’s our conversation, edited lightly for clarity and brevity.
Tell me about yourself and the launch of Locket, which has been around for a bit, but is really starting to pick up steam.
MM: I kind of got started back in middle and high school building a bunch of random iPhone apps, different social apps and games, and really ended up falling in love with building products and having people use them, even though most of them would take like a year to build and then get like 10 users. I went to University of California Santa Barbara for college and did a bootstrap startup while I was there for two or three years, and then towards the end of my senior year, I met my girlfriend, Ava.
And when it came time to graduate, we were going long distance for the first time, and I had the original idea of Locket, just as a little birthday present for her, right about the time we were about to start living apart. I ended up building it in like two or three weeks because it was the birthday present. And then for the next six months after that, we just kind of used it the two of us. There was no real plan for it to become a big app on the App Store or shared publicly or anything like that. It was really just like this other thing the two of us were doing.
But over time, I think two main things started to happen. One, having built so many different apps and games over the years, there's that special feeling of actually using something for a while and really getting a lot of value out of it. And I think, having built so much stuff, I realized how rare that feeling actually is, even when you're the one who's making it. And then second, partly because Ava had a good story to tell her friends whenever we'd be at a party or something like that, she'd get her phone out and be like, ‘Look at this app that Matt made me like, look how cute it is.’ And people would actually come to the App Store and be like, ‘Oh, I want to download that and use that as well.’ And we had to tell them, like, ‘It's not on the App Store, like it's just our private thing. There is no app to try.’ But it was also this kind of interesting moment of like, people clearly resonated with this. So we decided to launch.
What gap were you seeing in the social media landscape, especially for Gen Z, when you launched Locket?
MM: So we launched on New Year's Day of 2022, and even at the time we had maybe like 20 or so people testing it out. And mainly from TikTok originally, we did 10 million downloads in that first month, which was this kind of crazy initial reaction to the product. And I think that also made us take a step back and kind of say, ‘Why?,’ ‘Why are people so excited about this idea and resonating with it so deeply?’ And I think a lot of it comes down to you know, while back in the day, a lot of apps were focused on helping you stay close with friends, all of them, over time, ended up shifting much more towards entertainment and helping you connect with millions of people, and celebrities, and news, and all these different things. And it felt like the real friends kind of got drowned out in the process. And part of that is also, I think a lot of young people have a pretty negative relationship with their phone and want to use it less, and feel like when they open a lot of these apps that it makes them feel bad and like they're wasting their time and wishing they hadn't opened them in the first place.
Products like Locket that actually make people genuinely happy and feel like they're getting close with the people they care about, I think just really resonates with young users who are kind of fed up with the alternatives. That's really what's our goal of our success.
You had a lot of success on TikTok. How did you utilize social to boost your own social platform?
MM: This was definitely one of the things that we got pretty lucky on with the launch. All the first TikToks we made were just me and Ava, kind of like making random videos ourselves and putting them out there. But I think that's definitely a deeper insight with TikTok, which is like, before TikTok it'd be very hard to launch any new idea, period, and have millions of people be exposed to it overnight.
But because of the way TikTok distribution works these days, you really can just build something, make a video that's pretty compelling, showing off what your thing does, and then the TikTok algorithm will do all the heavy lifting to actually get it in front of lots of people. It feels like an almost democratizing force. It really was just like me and my girlfriend making random videos and then millions of people signed up for something, versus 10 years ago, getting a million people to do anything would have been like border line impossible.
KS: As Matt mentioned, the democratizing of attention was a big thing that TikTok allowed. And, you know, you'll get Addison Rae, Charli D’Amelio and all these people who were kind of nobodies, but then use TikTok to build an entire audience. Now you're starting to see companies and businesses do that, and I think we were probably one of the first apps to basically do that. We used the attention that was out there and saw something resonated and it got us 10 million downloads in a month, which was crazy. And then over the past two and a half years, we've really kind of used TikTok almost as our marketing and distribution channel, building more viral moments and capturing more of that attention, just getting the product in front of as many people as possible while we can.
MM: TikTok won’t make any idea go viral or the wrong idea go viral. But what it’s really good at is if there’s actually an idea that people really do connect with, it can amplify that like crazy. Whether that’s an app or a song or anything.
Can you walk me through the basics of what the widget looks like now, from a user experience point of view?
MM: The core product’s super simple. You add Locket to your home screen. You can actually only add 20 people at the moment. You're really geared toward close friends and family, and then throughout the day, whenever a friend sends a photo on the app, it'll pop up right there on your home screen.
So you open your phone and you just have a picture of your significant other, your best friend from college, your mom, kind of waiting for you right there on your home screen. A lot of what we've worked on over the last three years has been like building all the other things that you need to stay close to the people you care about, and a lot of that happens inside the app. So the cool thing with the widget is you can just tap on it right on your home screen. It opens up the full app experience, and then you can do everything from see all the memories that you and your friends have shared on the app, to chat with friends. We have a new feature that lets you do a weekly photo dump with your friends every Sunday.
We're always trying to think, if we're this app where you have those 10 to 20 people you care about, what are all the ways that we can help you stay close with those people?
In terms of the culture of social media at the moment, what do you think Gen Zers want from social media that they’re not currently getting from social platforms?
KS: All these platforms are really shifting more toward watch time, engagement, really trying to keep you there and capitalizing on those like two percent of people that actually make the content to then distribute to all the other millions and millions of people that are watching it. And I think it is shifting away from just like, here is an unfiltered view of my life that I can just post and share at ease without fear of judgement. And I think a place that you can authentically post without fear of perception is a big one.
MM: The other side of the equation is the content you’re seeing on the app as well. And so I think, just everyone, opening up your phone, and you just tap into one of the big social apps, and like an hour later you’re like, ‘Oh my god, what was I doing with the last hour?’ Or you saw stuff on there, where you’re like, I don’t want to be thinking about that right now, or comparing myself with these people living these really glamorous lives.’ Whereas the number one thing we hear when we chat with young users of Locket is that every single photo they get on Locket they like and it makes them excited to see. And it’s not because the photos are super exciting or anything like that, but usually it’s an actual selfie from one of their friends or a picture of what their friends up to that day, and that just feels way more positive and exciting than you’re getting sucked into some experience and battling it out to try to get your time back.
How do you see yourself as different from what other apps in the space are offering?
MM: In many ways there are similar ideas at play. I think we've definitely gone about things differently, just in terms of how we built the product and the company. Zooming out, the job Locket can do is help you stay close to the people you care about, and there's a lot of different parts to that. The widget is part of that, but then it's also all the other parts of the product. And we're always trying to build new things to help you do that better and better. That's been a big advantage to us in the long run by kind of like taking that slow and steady and feature-forward. Like, how do we just build the best product for this use case? I think that's given us longevity and continued growth over many years at this point.
KS: On the company side, we’ve stayed a team of like eight to 10, pretty much over the past three years, which has allowed us to be quick and nimble and build new features and test them. You can just do so much more now with a small team, especially with all the AI tools out there.
How do you monetize the product?
MM: Right now, the biggest driver of revenue is actually subscriptions, which is something we weren't expecting when we started. But a decent chunk of the user base does pay now, and that's been really great for for our ability to keep growing and also build features for those power users who really want another side of Locket, and then we also do some basic advertising in the app as well, in a way that we hope isn't super intrusive to the user experience.
What do users get by subscribing?
MM: It’s power features in the app right now. So it’s things like being able to send longer videos, being able to customize the app experience, or taking away some limits to the product. Paid subscribers can add more friends if they want to and they can upload more types of content.
Do you have insight into the type of content users share? How are people using the widget in ways you didn’t expect?
MM: The only reference point we have is TikTok videos users make out in the world, photos of their Locket history and stuff like that. I think in terms of surprising stuff, one thing that's always fun is you'll see people using Locket with unexpected people. It'll be like a kid and their mom or a kid and their grandparents. And obviously, the vast majority of our users don't really fit into that demo. But it's cool that some people end up using it for things like that.
KS: A lot of people use it, some more aesthetic than documenting. You know, they’ll take 14 different photos of their coffee or something and create a really nice grid as a result of it. Or they'll take daily outfits and send them to their friends. It's kind of ‘little slice of life moments’ that you're like, ‘Oh, this is cute, I want to capture and save for myself and also send to friends.’ Most of the things that people post on Tiktok are really aesthetic grids or a really cute photo that they capture, or, yeah, also seeing like some people do, like, ‘POV, here's what life looks like if you're a study abroad student in Germany,’ and then other people will add them. So kind of like pulling back the veil of what they see in day-to-day life.
Where do you see the app in a year or beyond?
MM: It really comes down to doubling down on that core use case. We want to be that app for your real friends and your best friends. I think success for us looks like making more and more things that help you feel closer and stay connected with those people. We launched that photo dump feature recently, which has been a big success with the user base. We really want to do more and more stuff like that, giving you more opportunities to have touch points with your friends. And then just continuing to scale up events and grow with new demographics.
KS: Yes, we’re a Gen Z platform, but we’re also seeing a pretty large tick with Gen Alpha too.
MM: There’s this whole next generation of people who are getting to high school age at this point, and they're actually going about life even more differently, again, than what everyone's been talking about with Gen Z. And that's our number one source of growth at the moment, coming from that pocket of people.
Do you see the platform as just a fun social tool or something with broader social and cultural impact?
MM: I think there's something really powerful about giving people a place where they feel like they can be their true selves and actually express themselves even more genuinely with their friends. If that works, then that kind of bleeds out to a lot of other cultural things as well. It kind of sucks to be in a world where people are constantly worried about how they're perceived. If we were more in a world where you can just be yourself and be with your friends, that's got to have some pretty great widespread cultural impacts at the end of the day.
KS: This is a small thing, but the way that Matt went about first branding and naming the app, like it’s called Locket. It's almost this digital representation of something that used to be physical, which meant a closeness to somebody, a sense of love and care. And I actually think we as a company try to bring a little bit more of that energy and personality back into the product. And I think that we would all love for it to be much more of a cultural platform that was synonymous with love, care, friendship, positivity, while also being fun and cool and trendy. But the name, the story behind the app, those are things that we actually think are kind of engrained into the company.
Noteworthy reads
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The complicated truth behind Gen Z’s ‘religious resurgence’, Melissa Deckman for The Hill
Economy and Epstein: Gen Z MAGA wants results, Tal Axelrod for Axios