Culture travels person to person. We built the place it lands.
Wathaag is a home for anyone with an audience, and everyone in it. Artists, tastemakers, venues, festivals and food trucks share what they're making. The people who follow them never find out too late.
Good things happen. Most people hear about them after.
A screening sells out in a group chat. A pop-up is announced in a story that disappears in a day. A gallery opening reaches the same forty people every time. The people who would have loved it find out on Monday.
Meanwhile the people actually moving audiences, the friend whose picks you trust, the creator who fills a room, the artist with a loyal following, get thanked and rarely paid. And the venues and organizers they fill rooms for still can't see who came, or why.
One place to follow people, not algorithms.
Creators, artists and organizations, not a feed tuned to keep you scrolling.
Every Creator gets a tracked link and a verified count of the audience they send.
Hire a local creator, back an artist for $5 a month, pass on a deal. The money goes to people, not ad networks.
First-timers and regulars, what they're into, where they heard about it. Shared in aggregate, never sold, never by identity.
Wathaag means shared benefit.
It comes from the Somali word for shared benefit, not just sharing. When you tell people about something good, everyone should come out ahead: the person who made it, the person who spread it, and the person who showed up. That's the whole idea.
Starting here, on purpose.
More theaters per person than almost anywhere in the country. A film and music scene that punches far above its size. Somali, Hmong, Oromo, Latino, Native and Black communities making culture the rest of the country hears about later.
What's missing is the connective tissue. We're building it here first, with people we already know.
“I've spent more than ten years programming film, covering the arts and making work in this community. The best nights I've had, someone told me about. Wathaag is my attempt to give those people a home, and to make sure they get paid for what they do.”
Find what moves you
Browse events and follow the people behind them.
Browse events →Get credit for the crowd
A verified page, tracked links, deals and paid work.
For Creators →Reach your people directly
Your events, your lineup, your members.
For artists →Know who comes through the door
Audience insight, and local creators instead of more ads.
For organizations →