New App 'for Bros by Bros' Already Has a Woman Problem, Shockingly

If necessity is the mother of invention then boredom must be the father of apps. This week a new app called VSBRO launched and amassed 60,000 users in a matter of three days, according to Forbes. VSBRO’s description on Apple’s App store reads that it is a “community for bros by bros,” which is astounding, considering that no other such communities created for men by men currently exist online or in real life. Essentially, the app is a cross between Instagram and Twitter with minor bro-y enhancements. Instead of “liking” a photo with a thumbs up like on Facebook, bros can complement each other in bro-appropriate fashion by hitting a tapping a fist bump emoji “like” button. Something about the thumbs-up must have been too womanly.

Accordingly, despite its relative newness, the app has already attracted some women-hating bros. One of the app’s creators, Jacob Schuler, told Forbes, “Our biggest issue right now is we’re getting a ton of guys on the site that are attacking girls,” which is an easily foreseeable outcome for anyone who has been alive for the past 10 minutes. It seems as if the bros behind VSBRO were unaware of the possibility of women being harassed and mocked when a large faction of bros are gathered, and were thus unprepared to deal with the rush of women-hate. While the creators say they are working to remove inappropriate posts, it’s short-sighted that proper systems weren’t put in place for this kind of issue prior to launch. Yet that hasn’t stopped venture capitalists and Silicon Valley from taking notice of the start-up that is, I cannot mention enough, another iteration of pre-existing platforms. A second creator of the app told Forbes he had plans soon to talk to “one of the top VCs” about the app’s future.

While I’m not going to question why adult men need their own app to share photos of themselves skydiving, I do wonder what was so offensively feminine about existing photo-sharing platforms that bros felt unwelcomed. One review left by a user in the Apple App store sheds light on this mystery:

It’s so great to support the bros for once. You go on every other social media and it’s just girl hyping each other up, and us bros never fully get a chance to do the same. This could be due to the social norm that bros don’t compliment other bros, but that’s why I think this app is life changing. I am now able to hype up all my bros without feeling embarrassed or the feeling of being judged by females for just trying to support a fellow bro. With just a bit of tweaking, I think this app has the potential to be one of the best on the market. A comment section under posts would just complete it in my opinion. Thank you to the creators of this app for just being some awesome bros.

The bros just want to love on each other free from the judgment of society. VSBRO stated on Twitter that it “welcomes all genders” to the app, yet Forbes reported that when a 15-year-old girl downloaded it out of curiosity, the bros attacked her with messages like, “get her off this app,” and other women have been doxxed. If the bros are so concerned with a fully bro space then perhaps, and this is just me spitballing, they could just start a fight club and never speak.