Yubo is Becoming an 18-Plus App. Here’s Why.

Since we launched Yubo a decade ago, we’ve been gratified to see it grow into a home for a wide variety of opinions, interests, hobbies, personalities, and vibes.

During this time, we’ve also noticed a gradual but distinct shift: Namely, our traditional audience of young teens began maturing right alongside us, to the point that we now find ourselves overwhelmingly serving users aged 18 and older.

And since there comes a time when all of us have to grow up — yes, even plucky, aggressively yellow social apps — Yubo will begin exclusively serving an 18+ audience, effective November 1st.

In fact, this transition has been in motion for the past year, dating back to when 92 percent of responding Yubo users said in a 2024 survey that they’d prefer us to be adult-only. And while teens under 18 make up only a very small fraction of the accounts on our app, it still wasn’t an easy decision. However, it is one that we honestly believe will make Yubo an even better place to hang out, be seen, and connect.

To be clear, we always considered age to be an important part of the diversity represented on Yubo. Specifically, it was very important for us to create a protected space in our app for younger teens, an audience we felt was largely underserved in the world of social media. So from the start, we were excited to welcome users aged 13-17 as a separated segment of our user base.

There were a couple reasons for this. For one, we believed Yubo could be an important source of connection and joy for the school-aged crowd at a time when social isolation was becoming an epidemic — a trend only amplified by the Covid-19 shutdowns and the societal shifts that followed.

Also, we thought creating an app that included 13-17 year-olds would be a whole lot of fun. And it has been. In fact, we’re genuinely proud of the digital adventures, real-world friendships, and lively conversations that our younger community has pursued on Yubo.

However, serving the pre-18 crowd has sometimes meant balancing a dizzying mix of audiences who — even if separated only by a single year — often live in completely different, hard-to-pair worlds. It’s a user segment where conversations around parents, peer pressure and gaming often sit right alongside more adult-adjacent topics like after-school jobs, the onset of serious relationships, and sometimes overwhelming life changes like leaving home and dealing with new or permanently altered friend groups.

For sure, we want Yubo to remain a space that celebrates everything it means to be curious and connected in a complex world. 

While keeping the industry-leading safety features we developed in part to protect our pre-18 audience, we’ll focus on making Yubo a place that brings together young adults of all stripes — from transplants looking to meet people in a new city to anyone who just wants a better way to hang out, meet their person, or find their crowd without the pressure and performative nature of some other social apps.

To that end, we’ll be rolling out a fresh look, new features, and easier ways to use the app. With our new age policy in place, we’ll be able to design all of them around young adults and the freedom, fun and delightful unpredictability that draws them to Yubo.

Is all of this a huge bummer if you’re under 18 and managed to build a cozy little corner for yourself in the Yubo universe? We expect so. But time moves fast, and when you’re back, we promise we’ll be better than ever and ready to connect you to all the things, scenes and people you’re into.

And if you’re sticking with us as we begin our own journey into the world of full-time adulting, thank you. We promise the next chapter will be just as fun — and still very, very yellow. 

- Sacha Lazimi, CEO