Before Threads, there was Threads

The weather in Los Angeles is absolutely stunning in July. When I open my front door, I smell jasmine flowers and grass, and I can run to the beach to take in the ocean air. But I don’t think I get enough screen time. Thankfully, Mark Zuckerberg just unleashed a new social media app that takes a familiar premise – Tweeting – so I can spend more time doing something I haven’t done in a while (Tweeting). 

Threads is Twitter, except not. Its interface is simple and the format is the same. I haven’t checked if there’s a character limit because I don’t have that much to say. When you open the app, you will see an array of memes from creators (creators is such an annoying word) talking about how much they’re already addicted to Threads, which seems intentional. Because your account is probably connected to your Instagram account, you will be prompted to follow your friends, family and brands. As you follow more of these people, the feed takes on a characteristic that makes it feel very different from Twitter, because if you still used Twitter in the last five years, you probably didn’t use it to connect with your IRL friends. In fact, Elon thought of anonymous and unverified Twitter users like “spam”, giving preference to paying verified users. 

Thread today, gone tomorrow

A thousand years ago in 2019, The Verge reported that Instagram was rolling out a standalone messaging app called Direct. Direct put users’ Instagram close friends list in their own app, like Messenger or WhatsApp, but the idea was scrapped in favour of a different app called Threads, then compared to post-Kylie Jenner identity crisis Snapchat. 

When I tried Threads Z”L, there was no real reason to keep using it. At the time, Instagram direct messages were an integral part of the flourishing meme economy, where users would create and distribute high volumes of highly specific memes – taking advantage of the newly-introduced photo carousel feature we’ve all become intimately familiar with (it has finally made its way to LinkedIn). Anecdotally, I remember discovering most of these memes through Instagram direct messages. If there were people I primarily interacted with on Instagram, it was to send and receive memes. 

The meme economy?

Sharing high volumes of memes via messages was once a relatively new, perplexing behaviour. One Stack Exchange user admitted that he found it to be “very irritating,” asking how to make his friends stop. Another user responded, “Sending memes and such is mostly a fire-and-forget activity. Usually nobody expects even a ‘ha’ or a Facebook ‘like’ in return.” It also became a popular method of flirting – giving out your Instagram account on dating apps was relatively normal. It was less intimate than Facebook or WhatsApp, and sharing memes is a lowkey way of initiating conversation or getting somebody’s attention. In fact, it could even result in tension when attempting to share memes from private accounts when your friends would only pretend to be able to see them. It was that much of a thing. 

Today, we see the same behaviour replicating itself with Reels and TikTok, with sharing by message an integral part of both app experiences. TikTok,however, has perfected this by allowing users to swipe through shared videos chronologically inside the message, while swiping on a shared Instagram Reel will take you into your discovery page of impersonal content purgatory. With all of this being said, the lack of shareability and the lack of understanding how Instagram users primarily used direct messages made the initial iterations of Threads a failure. 

What will come of Threads will be decided in the next few weeks. Already, the experience is strange. Reluctant Twitter addicts are patting themselves on the back for migrating away from Elon’s mess – apparently the moral decision. Self-styled influencers are eager to carve out a space for themselves on a new platform, which reminds me of Clubhouse in 2020. When I opened the app just now, the first post I saw was from a person I don’t follow saying: “Just a reminder to be careful what you Thread. It could come back and bite you in a few years”. 

So we’re already accepting that Thread is a verb, our feeds will contain content from users we do not follow, and that its fresh user base is naive enough to not understand the repercussions of posting on social media. In fact, the lack of naivety threatens Threads’ cool-factor. When Twitter was new, early adopters were entering genuinely new territory, creating new language. Season 2 of Real Housewives of New York saw the cast members awkwardly squabble about “mean-Tweeting” between arguments about the content of their contractually obligated BravoTV.com blog posts. IFYKYK. I doubt any of the Season 14 cast members will join Threads. 

My feeling is that Threads might be doomed from the start. After like two days, it’s already corporate, curated, and not very cool. Do brands have joie de vivre? Can I use this platform to express myself honestly without fear of repercussion from family, friends, and colleagues? Why are people already posting thirst traps?

Our internet experience is constantly shifting and changing, and the platforms we use feel like tectonic plates. They’re enormous and define our geography, but we rarely feel them moving around beneath our feet. And then randomly something cracks and a new mountain range is formed, or a tsunami fires everyone at Twitter. It’s a terrible analogy, but I think that Threads is more of a pothole than an earthquake. I would give almost anything to receive a handwritten letter in the mail. I think I’ll spend more time at the beach this summer. Also I got engaged! IRL is so fun!