Instagram needs to have multiple options for curated stories instead of just the measly, insufficient and quite frankly reductive “close friends” list. I will die on this hill.
Look. One thing about me is I love to be in the know-how. I love to hear a little goss. I love to share a little goss, too. Know that if there’s a conversation in the group chat, I’m whispering with one of the girlies in a side chat. Oh, there’s a big work meeting? I’m live-blogging notes to my work bestie.
I love a conversation within a conversation and this is why Instagram’s “close friends” story option is simply not enough.
To presume that there is only one tier of people I want to share insight to my life with, and that everyone I know will either fit into the “story” or “close friends” binary is to assume a gross simplicity of the human experience that does a disservice to everyone, and especially to me.
instagram needs to have more than one close friends list because i have different things to say for different people
— ROYAL CHALLENGERS BANGALORE (@dr_nursing_baba) May 26, 2022
Me? I want to use Instagram’s close friends feature for more than just “everyone” and “everyone who isn’t my relatives”, which is how I currently use it. Others use it as “stuff I’d let my boss/colleagues see” vs “stuff I would not let my boss/colleagues see”. A whole waste!
I yearn to use stories for more creative (read: unhinged) content and yet I’m limited by the culture of having everyone and their mum on my Instagram account. And no, I will not be making a priv.
The answer to this yearning, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, is for Instagram to take inspiration from… Snapchat.
Say what you will about that app but in no way has any other platform been able to replicate the intimacy of friendships that Snapchat did. Remember those spicy AF “best friends” lists? Oh, what a time to be alive.
https://twitter.com/KelseyNicoloff/status/1527132968707407873?s=20&t=ObLkF7MO0TIsuy0wH0ePvA
One thing Snapchat nailed — after I left the app — was the option to make multiple custom stories for specific groups of your friends, instead of just one story. Like Instagram’s close friends stories except multiple of them which you can name and organise yourself.
If Instagram introduced a similar option, it would honestly be a game changer.
My stories would evolve from “pictures of brunch” vs “pictures of my boyfriend with me at brunch” to the genuinely inappropriate and unhinged content that temporal stories were initially designed for. Different groups of friends need different content and I will provide.
I know what you’re thinking — why not just use a group chat if you want stories that only some friends can see?
Well for one, I want my friends to have the option to see what I’m posting without the urgency of a group chat notification. I also don’t necessarily need everyone to reply to my story or feel pressured to engage with it — it’s just there to see. Also, I’m not going to make a group chat of 50 people to share one meme, lol.
Give me an option to curate multiple tiers of stories for different audiences or give me nothing!!
