Lemon8 is a relatively new lifestyle-sharing app. In a way, this app is like Pinterest and Canva combined into an almost perfect digital utopia. The app is used to express creativity, inspire others, and share information.
When you first download the app, the screen will prompt you to select the topics that you are interested in. The topics include fashion, beauty, food, home, pets, travel, and wellness. Your selected topics will factor into what you see on your “For You” feed. This feed is a tab on the home page that resembles the “Browse” tab on the home page of Pinterest. The first thing that stands out about the content on this app is the text, emojis, and arrows that are overlayed on most of the images. This is where the similarities to Canva come in – instead of just plain photos, the content on this app consists of artistically edited photos and collages. Another unique aspect of Lemon8 posts is the long-form captions. Instead of a short and catchy Instagram caption or a keyword-stuffed Pinterest description, Lemon8 users are creating blog post-style informative captions on topics that they are interested in. Like most social media apps, Lemon8 also has a comment section, and since the platform is so new, there are rarely any hateful comments. You can “like” posts or save them to your “collections,” which are similar to private Pinterest boards.
To create a Lemon8 post of your own, you can select one or multiple photos to edit in the app. The editing features include filters, cropping, adding text, and adding stickers. You can crop your photos into three different aspect ratios 3:4, 1:1, and 4:3. Then you can choose from 50 different fonts to add text overlayed on your photos. Unlike Canva, the sticker options on Lemon8 are very limited. Instead of thousands of stickers designed by hundreds of artists, the Lemon8 sticker bank only includes arrows, lines, and color pallets. You can also create your own stickers by selecting an object within one of your photos. Hopefully, more stickers, or even GIFs, will become available in the future. After writing your caption, you have the option to add hashtags, but if you try to add too many, the app will give you a warning message. This is likely to prevent users from spamming popular hashtags with unrelated content.
Unlike on other social apps like Instagram or TikTok, there’s almost no pressure to gain followers or become famous. Since the app is new and niche, everyone is starting from 0 followers, including famous influencers. In other words, this app is not a popularity contest. There are also no incentives like a creator rewards program or a monetization program, so posting on this app feels like a hobby instead of a job. As one Lemon8 user said, there is “no pressure to be on the app 24/7 in order to feel like I’m being “consistent”.” Instead of posting daily in the hopes of becoming an influencer, Lemon8 users post whenever they feel inspired to create.
You may also notice that there are no advertisements or promoted content on your “For You” feed, as there is currently no way to buy ad space or promote content on the app. Some users consider this app the perfect place to take a break from the constant pressure to spend money. One Lemon8 user said, “I feel like a lot of people signed up for [Lemon8] to get away from Instagram/TikTok and [the] constant amount of stories, links, and advertisements. It’s a breath of fresh air for us, and we like it the way it is now!” Other Lemon8 users disagree and feel that some of the user-generated content on the app, such as the #ratemyempties trend, is still advertising even if it does not directly link to a product. Unfortunately, we live in a materialistic culture, so trends where we discuss our favorite material items are bound to occur. This is clearly an app that many enjoy, but it may not stay like this forever. Many used to view TikTok as the perfect social media until they added ads and lives in between the entertaining content. Without selling ad space, Lemon8 may not be able to stay in business, since that is how most social media platforms produce a profit.
Lemon 8 has the potential to replace Instagram or Pinterest, but it also has the potential to become just another app that users feel obligated to check every day. For now, Lemon8 could be described as a creative outlet or a peaceful version of social media. It’s impossible to know what will become of the app in the future, but as of now, it’s pretty close to perfect.