RIP Instagram Likes & Activity Tab

Written By Sebastien Perez

No More Instagram Likes and Activity Tab?!

Sebastien Perez: What up? What up? Welcome to The Digital Acid Podcast. And this is the only place where you are going to find the best of future tech and street culture. I'm your host, Sebastien, and I'm joined today by my homie Nathan.

Nathan Haile: What's good? What's good?

Sebastien Perez: And we've got some crazy mind blowing topics for you today. So, namely, I don't know, I can hear people crying through the screen already but Instagram's 'Following Activity Tab' is going away! This is not a test. It is happening. And we're going to jump into that and more. But first, a quick message from our sponsor Starfish Community.

Sebastien Perez: Starfish Community is a co-working space and community hub for emerging technology pioneers to connect, collaborate and build. They host Blockchain, Crypto, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, IoT, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality and other builders in the Emergent Web space. They do some awesome events, and if you'd like to find out more about Starfish Community, you can visit their website at StarfishCommunity.com.

Sebastien Perez: So Instagram is getting rid of the 'Following Activity Tab'.

Nathan Haile: So you're talking about when you press the little heart at the bottom. Then you swipe over to see what people that you're following are liking and interacting with, right?

Sebastien Perez: Exactly.

Nathan Haile: Okay.

Sebastien Perez: So it says, "No longer can you cringe while seeing your friends or coworkers thirsty late night likes." So really where you see all their activity and movement. That's where they draw the line. So this article is from BuzzFeed. And I guess we can jump into this really quick so "Instagram launched its 'Following Tab' as an early feature back in 2011, long before it's 'Explore Tab' debuted. At the time following was the best way to discover new content, since it would show you things your friends were liking. But that's no longer true. Now that 'Explore' has established itself as the primary means of discovering new stuff on Instagram. Now that 'Following' has disappeared, it's likely few people will notice it's gone. Vishal Shah, Instagram's Head of Product told BuzzFeed news, it wasn't a feature that people use frequently, and the company suspected many users didn't know it existed. And for that, for those that did, it was often a source of unwelcome surprises, people didn't always know that their activity is surfacing. So you have a case where it's not serving the use case you built it for, but it's also causing people to be surprised when their activity is showing up." Boom!

Nathan Haile: You know he kind of put it out there perfectly. Really...

Sebastien Perez: I mean, first off, have you used the 'Activity Tab'? Do you check out what people that you following, what they're doing?

Nathan Haile: Not as much lately but like, before I used to like back...a while back like and then I just stopped going to there. I check the 'Explore' page more.

Sebastien Perez: Do you think that that's probably like a good way to find out like, you know like about dope brands before? Or not really?

Nathan Haile: I wouldn't say so much about finding out about dope brands. You really just like see what people are liking.

Sebastien Perez: Well, what I'm saying is obviously like if, let's say @Hypebeast or one of the pages that you like or one of the influencers that you like that you know like @GullyGuyLeo or something and he's out there liking some sort of, you know, low key street wear company, then technically you could get served up. You know that this person just liked this post and that might be a way of discovery, but you're saying: "Don't even use that."

Nathan Haile: Nah, I feel like nobody uses that to discover at least like I think you're digging up dirt if you're going into that tab like let's be honest. I'll find I'll discover everything in the 'Explore' page when I'm exploring.

Sebastien Perez: And so what do you think are the use cases or the scenarios that they're talking about? That people are surprised that their activity is showing up like unpleasantly surprised.

Nathan Haile: Oh, unpleasantly? Oh, you're liking some risque photos that you shouldn't be liking!

Sebastien Perez: Ooooh! On an Instagram THOT's page and you know?

Nathan Haile: [Laughing] Yeah. Yeah.

Sebastien Perez: You getting some likes showing up...

Nathan Haile: Uh Huh. For Sure. That's definitely it.

Sebastien Perez: Your significant other is asking you what's going on with your like activity?

Nathan Haile: Oof. That's a bad one. Yeah, that's a bad one. Or, you know, your boss sees what you're liking...I don't know.

Sebastien Perez: Right.

Nathan Haile: Or like maybe you got some habits that not everybody knows about. You know what I'm saying?

Sebastien Perez: Yeah, you had the day off. You're supposed to be at work, but instead they're seeing live activity two minutes ago, three minutes ago...

Nathan Haile: Yeah, the last one.

Sebastien Perez: ...on some questionable things.

Nathan Haile: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Sebastien Perez: Hmmm.

Nathan Haile: Yep. Yeah. There's a lot of things that you don't necessarily have out in the public. You know? You don't put everything out about yourself. So like...

Sebastien Perez: So you think you'd prefer if your activity wasn't shown is that what you're saying?

Nathan Haile: For sure, but I liked its existence. [Laughing] Because you could go find stuff!

Sebastien Perez: You like the ability to creep.

Instagram deleted the following tab and now my nosey self is upset. How am I supposed to see the memes other people be liking lmao #instagramupdate pic.twitter.com/O7d8Tl9ah6

β€” alexis (@alexissvong) October 8, 2019

Nathan Haile: [Laughing] But, but it doesn't serve like good use to me.

Sebastien Perez: Right.

Nathan Haile: Yeah. So so so like...

Sebastien Perez: So good riddens?

Nathan Haile: Yeah, I'm out with it, but it was like, it was like kind of like a blessing and a curse. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's a double edged sword.

Sebastien Perez: Gotchu.

Nathan Haile: So, like people are finding stuff out about you, but you're also finding stuff out about people. [Laughing]

Sebastien Perez: So, you think the future is you know more open and more closed off?

Nathan Haile: What do you mean by that?

Sebastien Perez: So, like, you know, how like now all of a sudden you got these questions of, "Should we be hiding the follower account?" "Should we should we be hiding the like, ratio?" on, you know, on your videos and stuff. So all these are being debated. And the question is, is that do you think that the future is us kind of taking away the visibility of how well things are doing to soften the you know, the sort of what they're saying is damage on you know, people's self esteem and whatnot? I think that's the main driver here.

Nathan Haile: Yeah, I think if they did that, it would have to be like artfully so. Like, maybe business pages get to keep that because that's like key metrics there. Like, I think that would ruin it as like a business platform because like you want the social proof is like necessary, in my opinion. If your brand has no followers, no likes. You know...come on.

Sebastien Perez: Well, but then the question is that would that even the playing field, if you couldn't see who was big and who wasn't?

Nathan Haile: I mean, it might even the playing field. I'm just saying like as a brand, I would want to move to a totally different platform. Like this, it's just useless for me now. You know, I need metrics.

Sebastien Perez: So somebody's going to show the metrics so...

Nathan Haile: Yeah someone else will if they're not going to do it.

Sebastien Perez: So you think people will always want to see how well things are doing online.

Nathan Haile: Oh yeah dude. That's like...As much as it's bad for someone self esteem, like that's what got you addicted to it in the first place is seeing your number go up, seeing your likes go up. You just sitting there, you post a photo? Now, you staring at the same photo for two hours looking at that waiting for your likes to roll in. You know what I'm saying?

Sebastien Perez: So you don't think that this move here is the first of many, you think this is just a flash-in-the-pan move. Where they're just getting rid of an old feature that just wasn't getting a lot of use.

Nathan Haile: Mmmmm, no. I think that there's been talks of them like wanting to not emphasize likes and followers as much. So like, I wouldn't be surprised to see them move in a direction like that. I just think it'd be horrible for them to completely take it out.

Sebastien Perez: Gotchu.

Nathan Haile: In fact, I would like an unlike button added to the platform. [Laughing]

Sebastien Perez: An unlike or a dislike?

Nathan Haile: A dislike. A dislike button. Yeah. Yeah. [Laughing]

Sebastien Perez: I think you got an unlike button already. You can like it and unlike it as many times as you like.

Nathan Haile: Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah. Dislike. Dislike.

Sebastien Perez: Okay, so you want to be able to dislike stuff and say, I mean, but is that kind of like the mad or sad reaction? Or I guess that's more on Facebook right? So yeah, on Instagram, you just got the double tap, the love.

Nathan Haile: You only have the option to show love or not. Yeah...[Laughing] I'd like to be able to show the opposite. I mean, that's a little bit of a joke like I'm not being serious about that.

Sebastien Perez: So I guess the design aesthetic there is...

Nathan Haile: It could create a bullying problem.

Sebastien Perez: Yeah. Yeah. So would it be like a broken heart?

Nathan Haile: [Laughing] Yeah, I guess.

Sebastien Perez: I mean, if you put a thumbs down, it wouldn't make sense, right? A dislike doesn't really make sense in this scenario. Being that Instagram is a heart.

Nathan Haile: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I see what yeah, it's not going to go in that direction. I'm just kidding around. But I think it's probably good for them to get rid of this. Not really necessary and probably causes more distress than it does cause like good. Like I said, like you could find a brand that way but Like if you go in there you probably find more than just that brand you know?

Sebastien Perez: Alright, so that's our hot take on it Good call Instagram. Get rid of that 'Following' page but don't touch our our Follower counts or our likes just yet we're not ready for that yet.

Nathan Haile: Not yet!

Sebastien Perez: We're not ready for that step in our relationship.

Nathan Haile: No.

Sebastien Perez: Okay, our heart can't handle it. So anyways dope story.

Sebastien Perez
Previous

Must-Have Accessories for Oculus Quest 2
Next

Streetwear Delivered by Drones