We hear this a lot from folks who sign up and log in for the first time. They tap around, see the familiar timeline, the familiar layout, and think: this is just Bluesky with a different icon.
They're not wrong. Not entirely.
Why it looks like Bluesky
Chunky Guys is built on top of Bluesky. We took their app, made it ours, and started building from there. That was a deliberate choice. We've been trying to build something for the bear community for years, and the cold-start problem killed every previous attempt. Bluesky and the AT Protocol gave us a way around that: an existing userbase, open infrastructure, no need to convince people to start from scratch on yet another platform.
The trade-off was that the app would feel familiar. Too familiar, perhaps. But we wanted to get it into people's hands as quickly as possible rather than disappear into a two-year development cycle building something nobody ever gets to use.
What we've actually changed
The first release updated the Explore page and added media messaging. That might not sound like much, but media messaging was the single most obvious gap between what the community expected and what Bluesky offered. It needed to happen first.
Since then we've been building outward. Chunky Guys member indicators so you can see who's part of the community. Online status so you know who's around. The boop feature (which had its own adventure). Push notifications for boops and messages.
But here's the thing we've learned from talking to folks who use the app: they'll open it to send a photo or check a message, and then they leave. They don't stick around. A big part of that is notifications. If Bluesky is pinging you every time someone likes your post or replies to your thread, and Chunky Guys isn't, you're going to live in the Bluesky app. Why wouldn't you?
The next release, which should land in the next few days, fixes that. We're rolling out notifications for all Bluesky activity: likes, replies, follows, mentions, the lot. It's the kind of thing that sounds boring on paper but should genuinely change how people use the app day to day.
What comes next
This is where it gets interesting, and where we need your help.
We don't want people opening the app and thinking "it's just Bluesky." We want the experience to feel different. We can already access everyone's Bluesky account and all the social infrastructure that comes with it, but we need to give Chunky Guys members something on top of that. Something worth coming back for. Something Chunky.
We have ideas. Loads of them. But this app is for the community, so the community should have a say in where it goes.
Here are a few things we've been kicking around:
Hidden follows: A separate feed of people you follow privately, where only you know you follow them. For folks who don't want to maintain a separate account just to keep parts of their life separate.
Ephemeral posts: Content that stays up for a set period, hours or days, then disappears. Say what you want to say without it hanging around forever.
Nearby discovery: Using your location to surface people close to you. Useful when you're travelling, at an event, or just want to know who's around.
Polls and anonymous Q&A: Ways to interact with your followers that go beyond likes and replies. Ask a question, get honest answers, without anyone having to put their name to it.
These are just conversation starters. We could go in completely different directions. The point is: we want to hear what you actually want. What would make you open the app instead of Bluesky? What's missing? What would make this feel like yours?
Built for you, not for shareholders
There's a whole world of features we could bolt on, but we're not interested in building things just because we can. Every decision we make comes back to the same principles: your data is your data, the infrastructure stays in Europe, and the community gets to shape what this becomes.
No big tech. No algorithms deciding what you should see. Just a platform built for the bear community, by the bear community.
So tell us. What do you want next?