Threads, Meta's latest competitor to Twitter, is finally out now. And in fits of peer pressure, all Instagram users spent their past few hours hurriedly downloading the app, logging in with their Instagram account, only to realise that they could never get out.
After installing Threads, you might have had second thoughts like “Is this another Twitter?” or “I cannot keep up with another social media platform now”. But don’t let these second thoughts drive you to delete your Threads account. Meta has confirmed that the only way to delete your Threads account is to delete your Instagram itself.
To quote the one joke that many new thread-ers are posting on Threads, Meta is giving you a “threat” to stick to Threads.
Once you log in with Threads, the app asks you to sync your Instagram mutuals. You would readily agree to that as it seems more than convenient. But then, the journey begins.
In my personal experience, I came across a few 500-600 followers (as the rest of the followers haven’t joined Threads yet). Threads then sent me a list of all of these accounts to which I had to manually follow.
As I began following the mutuals and the mutuals began following me on Threads, some of these Threads notifications are also appearing in your general Instagram notifications. This weird sort of inter-app travel might have stemmed from a glitch but both I and my Instagram mutuals had to go through this ordeal.
In my case, a friend of mine texted me on Insta out of the blue, asking me why I had unfollowed him on Instagram. Fearing that my account has been hacked or something, I went on to check that I was still following him on Insta. Basically, the notification from 2 hours back that I “started following” him was simply because I started following him on Threads 2 hours ago!
When I myself began finding some really close friends also popping up on notifications like “@closefriendxyz started following you 5 min ago,” I knew that Threads can break some friendships amidst all this chaos.
Once you’re finally done with logging in and following every random person on your Instagram list, you can finally post. Relying on a Twitter-like layout (but less cluttered so far), Threads allows users to post text and images and then share their posts on their Instagram stories (albeit with a tacky thread reading “thread” in the background that you can’t remove unfortunately).
Many were intent on comparing Threads with Twitter, from calling Mark Zuckerberg a copycat or just wondering if the app will just trend for a week and then fizzle out.
But considering Twitter’s new strategy to invite paywall subscribers, Threads might enjoy some more popularity right now with all its (so far) free features. Only Twitter Blue subscribers, or verified users, can now read a maximum of 6,000 tweets per day while older unverified users are limited to reading 600 tweets per day. New unverified accounts will be limited to reading 300 tweets per day. With all this confusion in the post-Musk Twitter era, Threads might interest more people for now.
While some Thread users began indulging in some good, old “Instagram shitposting” on Threads too, others were confused on how to readjust their social media strategies and Internet personality according to a whole new social media platform.
As for people who struggled to find a voice on Twitter, they think that Threads gives them their long-awaited moment to shine!
As for now you can't DM anyone on Threads. For that you will still have to rely on Instagram and Twitter.