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Mannequin
Mannequin is redefining social media by focusing on user well-being. This page gives you a transparent overview of our business: our market, our traction, our team, and our risks.
Overview
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TechnologyFinancialsImpactPitch DeckRisks & MitigationsThe Problem
Social media has evolved into something it was never meant to be.
Platforms like Instagram and TikTok are built around one metric: screen time. Instead of prioritizing connection and self-expression, manipulative algorithms and dark patterns are used to maximize users' time on the app. The result is that people open these apps to connect and leave feeling worse. Only 46% of Americans report that they connect with their close friends when using social media. [Survey Center on American Life] Qualitative studies find that infinite feeds, notifications, and trending lists create unsettledness, fear of missing out, and stress-scrolling, so that people stay always-on even when they consciously want to disconnect. [Lupinacci]
This matters now because we are in the middle of a "loneliness epidemic," and an entire generation is turning to social media to fulfil the fundamental need of connecting with others. [Vankin] This need is not met on existing platforms and is instead exploited for revenue. Social media can be the right vessel to meet this need for connection. The platforms running on it are simply broken.
Our Approach
Our Design Philosophy
Mannequin is unique because it is a social media platform that is explicitly designed around meaningful connection with close friends rather than around engagement maximisation or content discovery. Unlike mainstream platforms, Mannequin does not implement dark patterns and does not include a short-form content tab. Instead, Mannequin limits content to a small, friends-only feed instead of algorithmically surfacing influencer or recommendation content.
Our product is innovative because it is developed as a scientific research project on social media and emotional well-being, not just as another consumer app. Under the supervision of researchers at the University of Twente, we design our interview studies and analysis methods to meet high academic standards and to test concrete hypotheses about how interface design affects perceived connection. The process of building Mannequin is not only based on research, but it itself is also research. The day-to-day use of the app feeds back into scientific understanding of how social platforms can support emotional well-being. Mannequin is a place where people come to connect. Because of this, we are willing to remove or redesign features that do not show a positive effect on connection or satisfaction with screen time, even if they might increase short-term usage.
Key Features
Due to this unique approach, the feature set itself is novel. On Mannequin, the traditional "explore" or "discover" tab is replaced by a dedicated connections tab that offers simple, research-backed ways to reach out. Each major element in Mannequin's connections tab has a specific purpose of leveraging known approaches to building connection in real life: non-verbal signals are designed to lower the activation energy of reaching out, and use intrinsic communication through shapes and colours to share emotional state without having to put it into words. Prompts promote meaningful dialogue between close friends that might never have happened without a little push, and low-barrier compliments that make positive feedback easier to give and receive. Additionally, our posts can be customised in both colour and font, as our research has shown the importance of intrinsic communication based on colours and shapes when it comes to sharing emotion. These features are explicitly linked to hypothesised effects on closeness, reassurance, and reduced stress scrolling.
This research allows Mannequin to generate a dual impact: on the one hand, a commercially viable, connection-first social platform for students; on the other hand, new scientific knowledge about which concrete design patterns support emotional well-being in networked environments. To our knowledge, there is currently no social media platform that combines a closed, friends-only product with a systematically researched library of connection features and success metrics that are explicitly aligned with users' emotional health rather than with attention maximisation.