- Threads has energy right now — it's random and exciting, and all your friends are there!
- It feels illogical to launch a text-based app as social media evolves toward images and video.
Threads has a real first-day-of-school energy about it. It's exciting, no one really knows what they're doing, and all your friends are there.
The magic, as any jaded internet user knows, could be temporary. But it also might not be, and if Mark Zuckerberg and company manage to keep Threads feeling a little like a party, it'll be the biggest win for Meta since the company bought WhatsApp.
Meta has not been cool for a long time. Instagram is likely the "coolest" product it has, and some of that derives from ripping off newer apps such as Snapchat and TikTok. Instagram Stories is a direct clone of Snapchat Stories, while the randomness of Reels appearing in your Instagram feed is an attempt to mimic TikTok's successful for-you page.
Threads is still derivative. But if it can maintain its early friendliness and cultivate the discovery of interesting people and ideas, it could simultaneously destroy Twitter and give Zuckerberg a much-needed edge.
Twitter's relative success flies in the face of logic, and it is ripe for disruption.
Social networks have evolved over the last decade to become more visual. There are some forum-style exceptions, such as Reddit, but big, mainstream, popular platforms are really all about video and imagery. Text updates feel retro, and that's because they are retro — blogging was popular at a time when uploading pictures and videos took up too much mobile data and bandwidth. So Twitter has done astonishingly well to build up about 250 million users, even if it never gets into the billions. As Zuckerberg once reportedly said, Twitter is a clown car in a gold mine.
It had two valuable propositions: As a journalistic and breaking-news resource, and as a kind of fosterer of serendipitous dinner-party eclecticism.
Most Twitter users know that the platform comes alive during a breaking-news event, such as Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The platform has an astonishingly diverse breadth of verified news sources, on-the-ground eyewitnesses, academics, and analysts, giving real-time updates and analyses that no single news source can compete with. Alongside this, you can follow ICE T, historians specializing in the Silk Road, and an account that quotes Samuel Beckett and have them all show up in your feed in a way that isn't really possible on other social networks.
Musk has ruined all of this. Under his ownership, Twitter has stopped verifying notable figures and journalists, instead handing out blue checkmarks to the average Joe who pays for the service. Twitter now prioritizes those paying average Joes in the feed, devaluing Twitter as a place to discover interesting people. Musk, one of the most-followed users on the platform, also amplifies right-wing figures and conspiracy theorists by constantly engaging with them through his account, fueling the noise. Journalists and news sources are no longer automatically verified, making it harder to follow breaking news events on the platform.
Twitter still feels random under Musk, but it's less dinner party and more beery louts yelling in the bar.
Zuckerberg has spied an opportunity in a jaded user base.
Threads, with the caveat that it's in its early days, picks up some of what Twitter has been trying to do — fast-flowing text updates with charmingly chaotic randomness.
There is, to be clear, some work for Threads to do here. As it stands, the app doesn't let you curate much of your feed, meaning users end up with updates from a random smattering of content creators, brands, journalists, and friends.
It is also not equipped to become a breaking-news platform.
But there's no animosity, no heated political debates, and no far-right influencers advocating for gun rights. There's a lot of humor. It's nice!
That niceness could be fragile and temporary. Detractors have rightly criticized Meta's other platforms for promoting toxicity, spreading misinformation, and enabling cyberbullying. Threads may go the same way since, as the internet loves to say, we can't have nice things.
But if Zuckerberg manages to foster a genuinely pleasant space that undermines an increasingly right-wing, toxic, angry Twitter and its owner, he'll be the internet hero of the hour.