- In an era where a lot of frequent social-media users are sick of being "perceived" and having hundreds, or even thousands, of eyes on them, many are retreating to the days of tighter connections and communities.
You have this really interesting countermovement backwards into these much smaller and much more hyper-specific communities
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As people have run into the consequences of constant sharing, social media has become less social — and users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats.
Arantza Pena Popo
Social media is dead
Group chats and messaging apps killed it
"It's really bizarre to me that everyone's gone to this place in their mind that content has to be so curated," Bruening told us. "So curated that you can't show what you're cooking for dinner, because that's not cool enough."
- Using her handle, Illumitati, the campaign pushed back against the platform's changes that prioritized algorithmically suggested videos over a chronological feed of accounts you follow.
- Thousands of users, and even some celebrities like Kylie Jenner, got on board.
- Soon enough, Instagram scaled back its aggressive recommendations push.
At the core of Bruening's frustration was a sea change that had swept across Instagram: Instead of everyday photos from regular people, the platform had become a curated platform where even seemingly authentic content was meticulously planned.
The fatigue average people feel when it comes to posting on Instagram has pushed more users toward private posting and closed groups.
- Features like Close Friends (a private list of people who have access to your content) and the rise of group chats give people a safer place to share memes, gossip with friends, and even meet new people. It's less pressure — they won't mind if I didn't blur out the pimple on my forehead — but this side of Instagram hardly fulfills the original free-flowing promise of social media.
- "I know that for my age group, it's like you give up on it entirely, and then you just post only to your Close Friends or alternate accounts. There's this sublayer of Instagram that's much more true to what the app once was, but it is just not viewable to the general public."
As more people have been confronted with the consequences of constant sharing, social media has become less social and more media — a constellation of entertainment platforms where users consume content but rarely, if ever, create their own. Influencers, marketers, average users, and even social-media executives agree: Social media, as we once knew it, is dead.
Social media to social media
- "You sort of end up in this world that is beautiful and you are following your friends and following your family," Jeffrey Gerson, a former Instagram product-marketing manager, told us about the early days of the app.
- "How often do you get the chance to see the world through your second cousin's eyes?"
[ ]
It's going down in the DMs
In an era where a lot of frequent social-media users are sick of being "perceived" and having hundreds, or even thousands, of eyes on them, many are retreating to the days of tighter connections and communities.
"I'm honestly just tired of social media," said 23-year-old Walid Mohammed, who works in the creator economy. "I'm tired of consuming content all the time."
- "If you look at how teens spend their time on Instagram, they spend more time in DMs than they do in stories, and they spend more time in stories than they do in feed," Mosseri said during the "20VC" interview.
- Given this changing behavior, Mosseri said the platform has shifted its resources to messaging tools.
- "Actually, at one point a couple years ago, I think I put the entire stories team on messaging," he said.
These closed spaces aren't just more private than the Instagrams and TikToks of social media, however — they also offer something algorithms can't serve: niche communities.
"You have this really interesting countermovement backwards into these much smaller and much more hyper-specific communities," said Gerson, who recently has helped grow Castro Labs, a queer social-media startup.
That opens the door for new apps that can capitalize on the more direct sharing preferences of the younger generation. Discord, for instance, has grown to nearly 170 million monthly average users — it could even be on a path to an IPO. Other, smaller apps such as Geneva have also provided new ways to connect with people locally or with similar interests. For instance, the content creator Nina Haines launched a group called SapphLit, a self-described "sapphic book club born out of the queer BookTok community."
Victoria Johnston, a 22-year-old software engineer, imagines the ideal social-media platform as a "safe space where people can just connect and you don't feel pressured to have a big following or a presence or be really well known." Johnston, like many others, wants to go beyond a screen. She wants a social network that helps her find community in her everyday life.
And as more users and creator communities migrate toward closed spaces, the behemoths like Instagram are also trying to capitalize on this reality by introducing features like paid-subscription services that offer exclusive group chats.
You have this really interesting countermovement backwards into these much smaller and much more hyper-specific communities.
- This presents a problem for influencers and brands, since smaller, more direct spaces are harder to penetrate.
Social media promised to create an intricate web that brought us all closer to one another, but the wave of exposure led to an openness that many people just aren't interested in. Most people wouldn't let the first person they stop on the street sift through their camera roll. They want their achievements, failures, and little life moments to be kept sacred. So after a decade of airing our most intimate moments in public, the pendulum is shifting back. People are more selective with their communities and are reverting back to an old-school way of interacting. It's hard to know how the change will affect the online atmosphere over the long term — some evidence suggests the shift will create a healthier digital experience, but it also risks further dividing people into like-minded echo chambers.
Whatever the result, it's clear that the Instagram era of social media is over and the new era of "authentic" online sharing is emerging — just without an audience.
Amanda Perelli is a senior creator economy reporter covering social media influencers, advertising and marketing trends for Insider.
Sydney Bradley is a senior reporter covering the creator economy, influencers, and tech for Insider.
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