Welcome to Album! (Ages: 16‐35) - grayscale-dev/album GitHub Wiki

What is Album?

  • Album is a social media app built by someone who absolutely hates social media.
  • Why the hate, you ask?
    • Because social media is a one-way ticket to Comparisonville. And as Teddy Roosevelt once said:
      "Comparison is the thief of joy."
    • Also, it steals your soul via doomscrolling and brain rot. Not cute.

Ways Social Media Absolutely Wrecks Your Brain:

  1. You start comparing your Likes, Comments, Followers, Retweets, Reposts, and probably even Venmo emojis.
  2. You waste hours watching videos of raccoons stealing hot dogs. Funny? Yes. Worth 3 hours? Eh...
  3. You think everyone else’s life is better than yours (spoiler: it’s not, Becky just knows her angles).

Now look—out of those 3 traps, I can only really stop the first 2.
Number 3? That’s on you bruh.

The Big Problem:

Those sneaky lil' features—Likes, Comments, Follower Counts, Reels, Shorts, etc.—
That’s how social media gets you hooked. Why? One word:

Dopamine (aka: HELL YEAH)

  • You get a like? → HELL YEAH
  • Someone leaves a comment? → HELL YEAH
  • New follower? → HELL YEAH
  • You have more of the above than your best friend? →
    HEEEEELLLLLLL YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH

SO HOW TF AM I SUPPOSED TO GIVE YOU THAT "HELL YEAH"

WITHOUT ALL THE DUMB COMPARISON TRAPS AND BRAIN-SUCKING NONSENSE???

OBSERVE:

First things first: Shorts? GONE.
No more brain-melting, time-sucking, HELL-YEAH-laced nonsense. This ain’t TikTok sweetie.

Album is about real life. Like actually real.

  • Funny moments.
  • Wholesome stuff.
  • Wild adventures.
    Not 43-second videos of cats doing effing taxes.

Yes, you can make business accounts. That’s chill.
But meme accounts? Viral thirst traps? AI voice-over junk?
BANNED WITH PREJUDICE.

That shuts down Doomscrolling like your dad turning off the Wi-Fi.

But how do we keep it that way?

You.
The app is for people who came here to escape the algorithmic black hole.
So if you see a meme, or a short, or anything that gives ✨brain rot✨—
REPORT IT. Thank you very much.

Now let's talk about Trap #1: Number Comparison.

Here’s the deal:
I can’t stop your brain from doing math, but I can take away the calculator.

The Plan:

Likes and comments—they exist, but only you can see them.
No public scoreboard. No popularity contest.
You post because you want to, not to win clout.

But that wasn’t enough. So I went full psycho-mode researching how to give people that juicy HELL YEAH feeling without the stupid numbers.

What I found:

  • Animations – Post something? Confetti explosion. 🎉
    A little childish? Yeah. Still awesome? Also yeah.

  • Haptic Feedback – Tiny lil' buzzes when you do cool stuff.
    Post a photo? buzz
    React to someone’s post? buzz-buzz
    Feels good. Addictive. HELL YEAH achieved.

  • AI Comments? Ew.
    No one wants a robot yelling “DAYUM SHAWTY” at their sunset pic.
    Or worse: “You’re valid! 😊” from an app that doesn’t know you.
    Weird. No. Hard pass.

  • Awards?

    • “You’ve added 100 pics!”
    • “You’ve been on Album for 1 year!”
    • “You posted for 10 days in a row!”
      These are cool. Not enough alone, but a solid support cast.

SO HERE'S WHAT I LANDED ON:

✅ Animations – Fireworks, sparkles, maybe a goat that cheers for you. Idk yet.
✅ Haptics – Tactile high-fives for your thumbs.
❌ AI comments/messages – We are not doing that Black Mirror episode.
✅ Milestone Awards – But make them about you, not how others react to you.

Examples:

  • Create 10 albums → 🏅
  • Add 100 photos to an album → 🏆
  • Post daily for 10, 50, 100 days → 🔥🔥🔥
    (And zero trophies for “getting 1,000 likes” or “hitting 5k followers.” We don’t do that here.)

💥 THE CROWN 👑 JEWELS 💥

Reactions.

People can react to your post with any emoji they want.
No limits. You want to hit someone with the 🪿? Go wild.

BUT—only you can see them.
And here’s the real kicker:
You will never know how many you got. Not even a total. No stats. No scoreboard. Just vibes.
Sure, you could count them, but we promise nobody else can. And if you’re counting them? That’s between you and your ego.

Comments.

People can comment on your post, but only you can see it.
And again, no way for you to know how many you got.

Album gives you that “HELL YEAH” without making you hate your life.

So... What Is Album, Actually?

Now that you know why Album is different (and let’s be real... its superior), let’s talk about what it actually is.

Because oh boy, the differences don’t stop at “no likes.”

1. 📸 Albums — Like Actual Albums

Your profile isn’t some messy feed of chaos and selfies from 2017.
It’s made up of Albums. Like the kind your mom made after your first day of school with a backpack twice your size and a confidence level of 9000, but cooler.

  • Went to Disneyland? → ALBUM
  • Had a baby? → ALBUM
  • New ✨dress✨? → ALBUM
  • Bought a truck and took 47 sunset pics of it? → ALBUM

But wait—don’t want 3,000 albums clogging your profile?

We got Folders, baby.
Organize your albums like a boss:

  • Travel
  • Fit Checks
  • Kids
  • Weird stuff I found at Walmart

Your page, your rules.

2. 🔐 Public? Private? Somewhere In-Between?

Every single photo and video has its own visibility setting.
You don’t have to split albums, or move photos to different folders.
Just choose who sees what — photo by photo, memory by memory.
Because sometimes you want to share a moment... and sometimes you just want to keep it.

3. 🤝 Collaboration Mode: Activated

Want to let your friends or family contribute to an album?

Boom: #collaborationbaby

Invite whoever you want to:

  • Add pics to your private or public albums
  • Share memories together in one magical place
  • Laugh at each other’s weird faces in group photos

You only need to share it once — no more texting the same 6 people the same pics.
No group chat overload. Just post, and the right people see it.

And yes—even in public collab albums, you still get the full privacy buffet:

  • Show to public ✅
  • Show to just collaborators ✅
  • Show only to yourself ✅
  • Show to your future self after a glow-up ✅

4. 📚 Posts = Stacks

Posts in Album aren’t single, lonely pictures.
They’re stacks—like mini photo dumps.

You post a stack of photos/videos at once.

And here’s the slick part:

  • Reactions and comments go on individual images/videos, not the whole stack.
    So if one pic is “meh” and the next one is 🔥, people can respond accordingly.

No more “guess which photo the fire emoji was for” detective work.

5. 📝 Add Feelings, Not Just Photos

You can add text entries to any album—journal-style.
Want to say something about how you felt that day? Go for it.
Want to record a voice memo of the moment? You can do that too.

It’s not just about posting a pic.
It’s about capturing what the moment meant to you.

💭 Look—we know what you're thinking.

"This is just your camera roll + a shared album + a social app... but with sparkles?”

And honestly? You're not totally wrong.
But here's the thing:

  • Your photos app can't organize and share with emotional precision.
  • Your shared albums make everything public or nothing at all.
  • Your texts are chaotic, and your social media makes you feel like trash.
  • Album is alive.
    Haptics. Confetti. Journaling. Intentionality.
    It's memory-keeping that feels like something—not just a digital drawer of screenshots and chaos.

Album doesn’t want your attention.
It wants to give you clarity.

Let’s make social media feel human again. 💥