What is Circus?
The fan app — communities for creators, sports teams, and universities.
The short version
Circus is a platform where creators build and run communities, and members pay to be part of them. It’s not a timeline you scroll for random content — it’s a set of rooms you choose to be in, built around creators and topics you actually care about.
If you’ve ever paid for a Substack, joined a Discord server, or wished your favorite creator’s comment section was worth reading — Circus is built for that. It’s a home for niche communities, sustained conversations, and creators who want to own the relationship with their audience.
Communities, not feeds
On most social platforms, you follow people and an algorithm decides what you see. On Circus, you join communities run by creators. Every community is its own space — with its own posts, conversations, and membership rules set by the creator.
There’s no recommendation algorithm serving you content from strangers. What you see is what the creators you’ve chosen to follow have posted in the communities you’ve chosen to join. That’s it.
Creators can run multiple communities — some public, some private, some paid. Members choose which ones to join based on what they’re interested in. The platform is structured around opting in, not opting out.
How creators earn
Creators on Circus earn through ad revenue share.
Ads appear in community feeds — when one runs in your community, you earn a share of the revenue it generates. Rates vary based on your community’s interests and audience profile. A tight niche community with engaged members typically earns more per ad than a large but passive general-interest room.
The Circus Creator Fund is the program through which these earnings are managed and paid out. It opens after public launch.
Creator Fund
Full details on how earnings work, eligibility, and payouts.
Safety and trust
Circus is 16+. No exceptions. Accounts found to belong to under-16s are permanently closed.
Content moderation runs in three layers: automated hash-table scanning (profanity and known harmful content), machine learning text and image classification, and AWS Comprehend/Rekognition for deeper analysis. Every piece of content passes through this pipeline — not just flagged content, and not just after a report.
Automated and human review processes are being built for launch. Escalations will be reviewed by a human safety team before difficult moderation decisions are finalized.
Safety resources
Reporting, blocking, and support for when something goes wrong.
Who Circus is for
- Creators with an existing audience who are tired of algorithm changes, declining organic reach, and platforms that treat them as content suppliers rather than businesses.
- Niche communities that don’t fit neatly into the mainstream — whether that’s local culture, specialist interests, regional topics, or anything that gets lost in a general-purpose feed.
- Members who want to go deeper with the creators they follow, be part of a community that’s actually moderated, and know that what they’re seeing is chosen rather than served.
What’s coming
Circus is pre-launch. We’re building it now and onboarding creators ahead of the public release so they can start building their communities early.
There are two apps: the member app (for joining and engaging with communities) and the Creator app (for running communities, posting content, and managing earnings). Both are in development.