Talking points! The best social media reactions to Threads, Meta’s Twitter rival

The battle of the text-focused social media apps has well and truly begun, and no one is quite sure what to think. Maddy Mussen on how the internet is responding so far
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Maddy Mussen6 July 2023

Our once beloved bird app, Twitter, has been through quite a bit of turmoil as of late. Since ownership transferred into the hands of tech mogul and eccentric billionaire Elon Musk, we’ve seen the introduction of a paid subscription service, tweet viewing limits, janky image cropping and the complete and total image destruction of the historically coveted blue tick.

In its demise, challengers have inevitably presented themselves, looking to gobble up Twitter’s increasingly cranky user base. There was a brief period where we all thought we were moving to Mastodon, then Bluesky, then there was the uncharacteristically warm embrace of BeReal, and now, there is Threads.

Built by Meta to be used in tandem with Instagram, Threads is essentially Insta’s version of Twitter - a word-based Instagram, if you can imagine such a thing. It’s been pegged as the one true alternative to Musk’s volatile social media service, but if there’s one thing netizens hate, it’s change. And if there’s one thing they love, it’s mocking that change.

Threads has already been criticised for being “buggy” and lacking “basic features”, like how every new follower needs to be approved via request, in the manner of a private Instagram account, or how the app would occasionally crash when users attempted to upload images with their threads.

These issues aside, Threads’ launch was at least relatively successful in terms of sign ups, with 10 million users joining the app in under 10 hours. And boy, oh boy, can 10 million people provide some entertaining reactions. Here’s some of the best.

Mark Zuckerberg returns to Twitter for the first time in 12 years to tweet this

On the Threads vibe being a bit... off

I am a woman of substance now

Threads

Choose your fighter

Derry Girls always provides

Threads

Two worlds collide

They all look vaguely similar and I can’t keep up

Threads

Time to merge your online personas

It’s not a real social media app if it doesn’t have a Ben Affleck smoking meme

Threads

Are we gonna have to be... polite

Threads

Wait, forget Twitter and Threads, what about a secret third option

Please for the love of god people can we have some CONSISTENCY

Threads

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