Falconiforme is

What was Vent?

Vent was a semi-anonymous text-based, social network that aimed to allow users to express their feelings and connect with others in a supportive, mental health-focused environment. Vent was founded in 2013. The first version of the app was released for iOS in August 2014, with a new and Android release in early 2015.

In late 2022, a new Vent update was announced, which would change the familiar layout of the app along with the engine it runs on. On the 30th of March 2023, the app was updated to Vent 2.0 following a narrow miss with shutting down completely.

On the 4th of November 2024, Vent's imminent shutdown was announced. The plug was pulled a week later, on the 11th. A huge thank-you to this app for being my home for a decade.

The shut-down announcement from Vent's owner, Jamie Druitt.

Dear Vent Community,

After much thought and reflection, I have made the difficult decision to shut down Vent. This wasn't an easy choice, and it comes from a place of deep exhaustion and the realization that I'm not the right person to continue leading this community. I know this may cause hurt, frustration, and disappointment, and for that, I'm truly sorry.

When we took over Vent to keep it running, we didn't fully anticipate what the community needed to thrive. It's clear that sustaining Vent requires more than we are able to provide.

My team and I have poured our hearts into Vent, but despite our best efforts, we've struggled to meet the community's needs and expectations as we had hoped. We recognize the missteps along the way and understand the frustrations many of you feel. We are entirely worn out and emotionally exhausted. We sought a new team to continue Vent's mission but, unfortunately, couldn't find a viable path forward.

To everyone who has supported and been part of this community, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude. Your energy, passion, and contributions have made Vent a truly special place, and I'm grateful we were able to share this space with you for these years. I'm deeply sorry to have let you down, and I hope you understand this decision.

I believe the spirit of Vent will live on in new spaces, and I hope you continue to connect with those who you have formed relationships with. I'm confident Vent-inspired communities will emerge.

Vent will be switched off in 7 days-on November 11th at 13:00 GMT. We know this is a short timeframe, but we felt it necessary to make this transition quickly to minimise ambiguity or uncertainty.

You will still be able to open Vent to view your profile, posts, and conversations; however, the feeds and interaction features will be disabled. We will then remove Vent from the App Stores by the end of November.

Those who wish to keep a record of their journey can download your data via the settings in the sidebar.

We understand you may have questions, and the team will do our best to answer them in the coming days. The support team will be available if you have technical issues accessing your data.

Thank you for being part of this community and allowing us to share in a bit of the journey.

Jamie

Falconiforme is

Vent's Culture

Some things that stand out about the Vent community:

Username Trading:

High-value usernames were in high demand among the userbase and were often obtained through trading. In trading groups, users would list the usernames they owned and were willing to trade; other users would offer their own usernames in response.

Although against Vent rules, some users may offer real currency in exchange for a username. In the early days of Vent, users could purchase inactive usernames directly from the Vent team.

Usernames did not always need to be obtained through trading: inactive usernames were freed after a year or two and could be used for another account. Users kept a list of taken or deleted usernames they were "watching" so they could claim a desired username as soon as it became available. Groups like "Open UNs" let users post their own lists of available usernames for others to take from.

With the transfer over to the TalkLife engine, it became possible to own usernames with special characters such as unicode symbols, characters, and emojis. An exploit of sorts was discovered whereby, by using a unicode empty space character, taken usernames could be duplicated with little difference to the original. For the most part, this brought username trading to a halt.

Layout Making:

Many users of Vent like to have an aesthetically pleasing layout in their dropdown, alternate bio account, or as a heading in their posts, leading to the use of user-made layouts and the creation of the layouts group. In this group, users can create their own templates, often with ASCII art, borders, and copy-paste symbols and fonts. Other users can use these templates for their own profile.

Account directory layout design. Emoji key layout design.

Tag Memes:

Similar to Tumblr's tag games and ask memes. This is a Vent post of questions for you to copy and paste onto your own post and answer yourself. After filling it out, you are supposed to tag a few users to complete the same set of questions on their own post.

Tag memes follow different layouts, for example: longform answer, placing an emoji next to everything that applies to you, and placing an emoji next to something that applies to you in certain sections, and whichever section has the most emojis determines your result.

Questions from a tag meme.
Falconiforme is

Emotion Sets

Emotion sets are themed collections of labels that can be used to signify the current emotion you're feeling. Each set has a unique colour scheme and each emotion has a range of reaction buttons users can press. New sets are sporadically added but tend to come out once a month; they are modelled after major holidays and topics, often suggested by the Vent community themselves who can design their own emotion sets to post in the "Emotion Set Suggestions" group.

Most emotion sets are behind a subscription paywall and must be gifted to the account if they are not a subscriber; default sets are available regardless of subscription, along with current holidays, user appreciation, community favourites, and new sets. Many Vent users will match the colour of a certain emotion set with their profile picture, called a default.

Yellow Vent default. Blue Vent default.

Emotion Set Banners:

ADHD Awareness 80s Appreciation Advent Angel Day April Fools Art Asian Heritage Autism Acceptance Autumn Baking Bird Day Black History Month Bullying Prevention Camping Candy Cat Day Chores Coffee Day Comfort Community Favourites Cowboy Cupid's Day Day of Love Detective Day Digital Doctors and Nurses Disability Awareness Dog Day Dream Day Earth Day 2017 Earth Day 2018 Easter Education Day Emo Day Fairy Tale Fall Fashion Fear Festive Flower Football 2018 Forget Me Not Friday 13th Friendship Day Frog Day Fruit Gaming Gothic Halloween Halloweenie Happy Holidays Hanukkah Hispanic and Latino Horror Ice Cream Insect Indigenous Peoples Joy Kindness LGBT+ Pride Loneliness Long Distance Lunar New Year Magical Girl Mardi Gras Marriage Mental Health Merfolk Mindfulness Miscellaneous Music Nature Nautical Neutral New Year New Year's 2021 Nighttime Paranormal Passover Personality Pirate Day Pokemon Day Polar Pride PTSD Awareness Punk Day Rabbit Day Rage Ramadan Rat Day Read a Book Day Relaxation Sci Fi Self Love Shark Day Sheep Singles Sorrow Solar Eclipse Space Springy Star Wars Stuffed Animal Day St. Patricks Superhero Summery Tabletop Gaming Trans Rememberance User Appreciation Valentines Day Vampire Villain Weather Werewolf West Indian Pride White Day Wildlife Wintery Womens History Month World Oceans Day World Science Day Workers Day Writers Day Yule Zombie Fear Surprise Feelings Sadness Anger Creativity Affection Happiness Positivity

V1 Full-size Screenshots:

Legacy set:

Sometime in mid-2020, the Legacy set was created to honour the staff team and developers. This set was widely viewed as inappropriate and condescending to the userbase, mostly over the "complaining" emotion. The set was soon removed.

Legacy Set

KIN emotion:

In August 2020, Vent staff created the User Appreciation set, seemingly in response to the backlash over the Legacy set. In this, they included a "Kin" emotion to acknowledge the kin community on the app, leading to this legendary post:

Poll about the kin emotion. Kin emotion set.

V2 Full-size Screenshots:

True Crime Set:

On the 3rd of April 2023, the True Crime set released, sparking outrage from the userbase over the set's insensitivity. The set was renamed to Detective and then fully removed later in the day. An official apology post was issued.

True Crime

Jamie's Duck Set:

The next day, as an apology for the True Crime set, Jamie's Duck Set was temporarily available.

Jamie's Duck Set

InVenting:

On the 24th of April 2023, an emotion set was built by the userbase via a contest that ran over two days. Ideas were put forward as comments and those comments were voted on by other users; the top 12 suggestions were used to create the final set.

InVenting
Falconiforme is

Vent Merchandise:

Sometime in 2016, Vent sold official wristbands and T-shirts which featured the default sets colours and the Vent logo. Little is known about them.

Vent shirt and wristbands. Vent wristbands. Vent wristbands.