This morning, head of Instagram Adam Mosseri acknowledged the lack of a followers-only feed, along with the absence of search, hashtags, and DMs, and promised “we’re on it.” But for those who want to run screaming and delete their account now, sorry: if you delete your Threads account, you’re also forced to delete your Instagram account with it.
As for the upsides? “At least it isn’t Twitter” isn’t much of a glowing review. But I no longer want to supply free content to Elon Musk on his constantly malfunctioning platform, and I’m not alone. Time will tell if Zuckerberg’s crew can come up with features more compelling for what they are than what they aren’t.—Gabe Meline
The calm? Yeah, that won’t last
12 p.m. July 6: How is Threads? I wouldn’t know, baby! Having worked in social media and social-adjacent journalism roles for over a decade, I’m finally in a job that does not require me to be wildly invested and involved in “the latest in social media” on a 24/7 basis. So like any reasonable person who wrests a degree of control back over their life, I am now — for the next few hours, anyway — gleefully flexing that control by not activating my Threads account (and let’s be real, if you have an Instagram account that’s all this really is — a de facto activation of the Threads account every Instagram user basically already now has.)
This calm won’t last, of course. Judging from the air of “oh, of course” inevitability with which the launch announcement was met among Twitter users, Threads is probably going to become the next Twitter pretty fast. Not just because of that portability of your account and your follower count from Instagram (although do you want to see what your most visual pals are writing in text format?) but because of the fact we’ve all been waiting for New Twitter and, like Goldilocks with a screen time problem, we’ve not found any of the previous options on offer to be Just Right. We’re all tired, and if there’s finally a new option that looks good enough, we’ll probably accept it, with all its wrinkles and evolving features. So, if enough folks make that compromise (and I think they will, fueled by what’s been done to their beloved Twitter since Musk’s takeover), I’ll do it too — basically, so as not to be left in the cold on both the personal and professional fronts. But for now… just let me have a day without Threads?
5 p.m. July 6: I am probably now on Threads.—Carly Severn
Bring back anonymity!
I was shaped/burned by the flames of Tumblr in the mid-to-late 2010s, so the first thing I noticed about Threads is that you need to link it with your Instagram. This makes it slightly more annoying to have alternate, somewhat-anonymous accounts, since Instagram tends to be more personable or influencer-y than, say, the K-pop stan accounts of Twitter and TikTok.
Not to imply that there isn’t a wide fandom scene on Instagram, but I have a hard time seeing those subcultures flourishing in an isolating environment like Threads. (I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing.) There’s not a ton of opportunities to personalize one’s profile, like adding a header.
It’s also very ugly.—Nisa Khan
Call it what it is: two billionaires in a tiresome pissing contest
Most of what I’ve seen on Threads so far is (fittingly) very meta and therefore very boring. Threads about Threads. Beyond that, what I dislike most about the Current State of Social Media is knowing who’s calling the shots: a couple of billionaires engaged in a pissing contest over a form of communication and expression that has come to mean very much to very many. These bros are the frickin’ worst.
Mark Zuckerberg, a 39-year-old American man worth $101.5 billion and who employs tens of thousands of people, shitposted on Twitter yesterday for the first time in 11 years.
