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  • Pilar Montes

Social Media apps are becoming more like TikTok

Updated: Nov 7, 2021

In August 2018, the app Musical.ly merged into the app that is now known as Tik Tok. In the three following years of its existence, Tiktok has become one of the most popular social media platforms ever, if not the MOST popular. Compared to other social media apps, such as Youtube which launched in 2005, and Instagram which launched in 2010, Tik Tok’s running time has been very short. Despite the silly name, and original stigma surrounding the app, Tik Tok has grown exponentially; its influence on the pop culture epidemic as well. Tik Tok’s statistics are not the focus today though. For today, the spotlight is actually on those other previously mentioned social media apps: YouTube and Instagram. Are both platforms straying from innovation and focusing solely on becoming more and more like the 2018 born app? Well, it may very well be so.


In their concept, social media platforms have very different purposes. For the most part, YouTube is for uploading videos and Instagram is for uploading photos, but recently they all seem to have introduced a new feature to their layout; one that may sound very similar. In August of 2020, Instagram introduced Reels. Short videos that take up the entire screen and encourage viewers to keep scrolling. In the Spring of 2021, YouTube decided to introduce Shorts. The concept is virtually the same; they are short videos that take up one’s entire screen. A never-ending feed. Both of these features reflect exactly what Tik Tok offers. People have grown accustomed to short videos that capture attention easily without being too much of a strain to their attention span, and it seems like both YouTube’s and Instagram’s managers have shrugged and said, “Well if you can’t beat them join them.”


This isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened either. After Snapchat rose to fame in 2013, it introduced the feature of “stories”, where people could upload pictures or short videos for other people to see but they would disappear within 24 hours. This sort of thing had really never been seen before, and loads of people loved it. In 2016 though, Instagram released its own version of Stories. At first, people were very apprehensive about them, realizing they were just the same concept as Snapchat. Nowadays, Instagram stories are a quintessential part of the app. The same thing that happened with Reels and Shorts has happened before with Stories.


Why would these apps do this though? Why stray from the description they have already set and enter into new territory. Especially for Instagram, whose main focus is on photos, putting a big chunk of its attention on video content seems well out of character. A factor we can infer held importance in the decision to introduce Reels was probably monetary gain. Tiktok amassed tons of fame, and so Instagram decided that to encourage people back to their app they would improve it by adding the competition’s main selling point. A second reason why these features could have been introduced is a little darker though. It may be because of its ability to keep people on the app. The TikTok for you page is endless. It never stops. It encourages you to keep scrolling because you can never reach the end. The short videos make it feel like no time is passing, and then suddenly it’s been 4 hours since you said you would only spend 5 minutes on the app. The Youtube homepage shows you different options of videos, while TikTok plays them immediately for you, bidding you keep watching them.


So what does this mean? Is this good? Is this bad? Personally, I’m not a fan of TikTok, period. This never-ending feed I described gives me the chills, as it feels like a dystopian entertainment system you’d see in “Wall-E”. Its algorithm and company attitudes also leave much to be desired. The point of this article isn’t to defend TikTok and accuse Instagram and Youtube of copying the app. I mean, they did copy the app but it’s not the part I care about. Do all social media apps really need to be the same? Is the saying, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” broken? Will these sorts of “innovations'' keep happening until there is no way to distinguish between apps? Of course, no one knows, so all I can say for now is no thanks Reels, and no thanks Shorts, I think I’ll rot my brain someplace else today.


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