Why Instagram users are so mad that the platform is TikToking itself

Why are Instagram users up in arms over the platform’s dumb move to switch to videos and change the feed to be just like TikTok’s? One reason might be because they are taking away their hangout space. Connecting with friends is the need state Instagram fulfills.

For one of the final assignments this past spring semester, I had my SMU marketing students profile each of the social media channels they use, to explore how they deliver against different occasions and need states. Not surprisingly, Instagram was their favorite platform, and it was because the need state is the hangout place; it’s where they go to connect with their friends.

For those of us who grew up with actual physical hangout places, we can attest that those places were indeed our favorite places to go and they were important to us! For me it was Drakes Creek Park to watch friends playing baseball and softball in city and church leagues, or the HG Hills parking lot where we met up first to decide where to go next. Troy Aikman used to "cruise the strip" in his hometown of Henryetta, OK, and we did that too, at Rivergate Mall.

What’s the TikTok need state? In our class exercise, it was the students’ second favorite place (well below Instagram) and they categorized it as their go-to place for passing the time/relieving boredom. It’s more like TV or the arcade.

Yes, TikTok is exploding (right now). A recent Vox article described it as a colossally powerful entertainment app, with its 1Billion monthly users who are glued to it. Because the TikTok need state is more about mindless scrolling, users do stay on it longer. So now we have greedy competitors chasing that user occasion. But unfortunately they might be walking away from an important, valued need state and occasion that they owned. Would most marketers abandon their ownable occasion and need state?

Also, hey fyi to the folks at Meta – it’s super important to people that their social media allows them to socialize! (This article portends the actual end of social media and as being replaced by recommendation media, yikes)

I already feel bad for Gen Z and everyone after them who will never experience the joy and freedom we felt, driving around and hanging out all over Hendersonville on Saturday nights, meeting up with others, talking, joking around, flirting, getting into each other’s cars to listen to In the Air Tonight REALLY LOUD at the drum break…and then finally we had to either get home before curfew or stop at the bowling alley to use the phone to call our parents with a “sorry I’m late, but am on my way home now!”

Those times are gone. Probably forever, so here’s hoping that the mean techlords will listen to their users, have some pity and please don’t take their Instagram away!