Millions of millennials are reading six-minute horror stories in text messages
The app has generated more than US$6.5 million in revenue since launch, according to app analytics company SensorTower
By Michelle Castillo
Hooked is a new app trying to save fiction among the social media generation, one terrifying text message at a time.
“Our goal was engagement, getting teenagers and millennials spend time in a narrative and complete that story and not get distracted,” said Hooked co-founder and CEO Prerna Gupta. “Horror was the first thing that clicked.”
It’s working. The app, which has been downloaded more than 20 million times according to the company, is quickly growing in popularity among Gen Z and millennials. Hooked went from about 200,000 downloads weekly at the beginning of the year to more than 1 million per week, according to mobile app analytics company SensorTower said. Overall, downloads have increased 8,992 per cent year-over-year.
Most readers are between 18 and 24, with 69 per cent under the age of 25. The average user, however, is 25, and more than half are female.
Hooked’s premise is simple. Professional authors and users submit stories to the app with one caveat: It must be told as conversation between characters in text message form.