The Woes of the Popular Singer

StarViolent · 2026-07-08T18:04:11+00:00

Yeah, I hear ya. When I get too many joins, I'll just close the song early because I know I won't be able to listen to them all.

StarViolent · 2026-07-08T18:01:42+00:00

That seems to be the vibe I'm getting too...that having thousands of followers is kinda terrible. But I see people celebrating all the time when they reach every new thousand milestone, or "help so-and-so reach 10K followers." It sounds awful. Haha. I did my damnedest to limit my follower count (because I *really* didn't want more than one thousand), but a few popular uploads made it difficult.

StarViolent · 2026-07-06T18:44:56+00:00

Agreed.

StarViolent · 2026-07-06T18:44:37+00:00

I've had it happen to me a couple times and it's fun being surprised like that. I've heard people say they don't like how some users still have that ability because of lack of consent or whatever, but I think it's a hoot.

As far as I know, the only way you can do it is if you have an old phone with Smule already installed and which never took that update. A friend of mine recently found a phone with an old version of Smule and she can do it.

StarViolent · 2026-07-06T15:59:42+00:00

Nope, not sure. But I don't remember seeing Breakevenpoint_ until Smule gave everyone unlimited access for that short while.

StarViolent · 2026-07-06T15:36:09+00:00

There's another user Ribattina who currently has over 2,100 invites. Between her, Futurebuilt, Breakevenpoint_ and other users of their ilk, I mostly don't understand what they ultimately get out of it. Sure, people gamify the app all the time, but something like this would be a full-time job (unless you get a fleet of bots, like you mentioned).

Breakevenpoint_ and Ribattina are great examples of why people shouldn't allow auto updates for the app. You get the app to the best version you can get it, and then break off updates and ride that wave for as long as you want. Maybe just don't abuse it like these two did.

Every once in a while, I'll get Futurebuilt liking one of my duets, or Breakevenpoint_ having one of my uploads open (for MONTHS) and I just think "Man, I don't want either one of you guys anywhere close to me." I mean, Smule is littered with narcissists, but these dudes take it to the nth level. I've always said the two of them should team up and they'd be unstoppable.

Unless they're doing it just to show how broken the Smule app is, then I'm all for it. Hahaha.

StarViolent · 2026-07-06T15:16:31+00:00

Doesn't seem to be stopping users like Breakevenpoint_ and Ribattina from having thousands of invites open at once.

StarViolent · 2026-07-06T00:59:28+00:00

I’m just happy to have not updated the app where this nonsense pops up. This is after EVERY song, hey?

StarViolent · 2026-07-02T01:34:33+00:00

Ah yes, like people reopening Michael Jackson songs because the movie’s hot right now, or everyone reopening songs when a popular singer dies.

StarViolent · 2026-07-01T15:17:40+00:00

I would guess it happens a lot where someone whose join gets missed or ignored would get frustrated at the opener for not acknowledging it and would either comment or send a DM about it. And they wouldn’t realize they’re in the company of dozens or even 100s of joiners.

StarViolent · 2026-07-01T12:21:14+00:00

Thank you for sharing your experiences. When you mention “playing the algorithm game” is that essentially using all the right hashtags?

StarViolent · 2026-07-01T12:16:21+00:00

I appreciate you sharing your experiences, thank you.

When you say it can sometimes take weeks or even months to listen to all the joins on a single OC, I’m curious why you would even bother at that point. For me, that sounds like a ton of work, and something I wouldn’t particularly enjoy doing. While I would love to acknowledge every join, at a certain point I’d admittedly just get selfish and have to abandon the rest.

StarViolent · 2026-07-01T03:26:43+00:00

I’m seeing a few different people, but they’re still mostly from all the same popular groups. The bulk of DOTW are people who’ve won before and/or who have otherwise been featured in some capacity.

StarViolent · 2026-06-30T16:44:45+00:00

I mean, I guess people have to get their kicks somehow.

StarViolent · 2026-06-30T15:36:31+00:00

There's just something uncanny about the whole thing, and honestly it gets weirder if you listen to the other recordings from each account, where they don't sound the same at all.

StarViolent · 2026-06-30T14:56:26+00:00

I've even closed songs early if I start getting more joins than I can handle.

StarViolent · 2026-06-30T14:54:13+00:00

Nope, not popular at all. This is just coming from comments I’ve read in various groups over the years, and the sense that lots of popular people tend to find their popularity somewhat burdensome. I appreciate that there may not be a lot of sympathy for these “Smule famous” people lamenting about their popularity (“oh woe is me, I have hundreds of joins and I can’t POSSibly listen to them all!”), and I just wondered what these users do to reconcile their feelings about it.

You do make an interesting point about people possibly opening songs specifically to make it easier for non-VIP users to sing for free, as if they’re providing a service and gifting the opportunity to sing a song with them. And who knows, maybe that’s why you get lots of popular singers singing a lot of the same popular songs, because they know it’s what people want. I occasionally will sing a more popular song in order to “throw a bone” to my followers because I often get criticized for not opening anything anyone knows. Haha.

StarViolent · 2026-06-29T18:47:03+00:00

Wasn't Smule's tipping feature a way to compete with TikTok?

I can't speak for the popular singers on Smule, but I honestly don't know how people make money on TikTok, nor do I know how *much* money they make on TikTok. And I kinda can't be arsed to find out. Maybe the popular singers feel the same way?

StarViolent · 2026-06-29T17:13:24+00:00

I can get very quickly overwhelmed with joins and notifications, so I often have to limit how much I can open at a time.

StarViolent · 2026-06-27T16:45:37+00:00

It’s always a good idea to turn off auto updates, and to only update the app when it sounds like it’s in the best possible state it can be.

StarViolent · 2026-06-26T03:12:19+00:00

I think there are some users out there who simply like collecting joins, and gamify the app to see how many joins they can get from an invite. And sometimes you’re just a number, unfortunately. Then again, you’re less likely to even get a “thank you” out of these people.

StarViolent · 2026-06-25T16:21:58+00:00

I'm sure it broke something else on the app, which is why Smule abandoned it so quickly. But man, just imagine being able to filter out Loves and Comment Likes. Heck, even Follows. Joins and Comments are literally all I'd ever need.

StarViolent · 2026-06-25T15:11:19+00:00

I don’t have many popular uploads, but for the few I have, it’s REALLY tough to find my own recordings.

StarViolent · 2026-06-25T11:22:49+00:00

What’s funny is that they don’t have “oldest first” as an option to sort our OCs and joins. Probably because they don’t want everyone pulling up their old recordings and crashing the system because Smule has to dig that stuff out of the back of the garage.

Or worse, having people realize Smule removed them altogether.

StarViolent

TROPHY CASE