I think we’ve all seen what’s happened. It’s globally discussed, it would seem. Everyone knows about it. Instagram is being accused of pretty much entirely lifting the idea of the “story” from the arguably equally as popular photo sharing platform Snapchat. Instagram and Snapchat, from the outside looking in, have always been superficially similar but had a few fundamental differences. Instagram is for creating memories, Snapchat is for casual conversation. Instagram is for keeping up with people, Snapchat is for meeting people. Instagram is for editing, cropping, and doctoring-up photos to share with the world, Snapchat is for snapping where you are and what you’re doing for your friends. Small innovations have come with both, enabling more of what was lacking in both; more openness and casualness in Instagram, more global sharing and community building with Snapchat. As far as I can see it, it’s been pretty clear to me that all social media platforms do a lot of “sharing.” Hashtags came to fame with twitter, but now they acts in the same capacity on virtually any platform with text-sharing. More recently, I heard a lot less of a fuss made when Snapchat introduced “memories,” which Facebook had been doing by then for quite some time. However, the hooplah makes sense. The Story is pretty entrenched in Snapchat, given that it’s one of it’s oldest added features. And, for that matter, they saw a lot of success with it. Stories offer an entirely new dynamic to the brief-photo-sharing entity, even without the later addition of geography based Snapchat stories that we all still have a back-of-the-mind desire to get into and be famous for at least ten seconds. So, I get the phenomenon of accusing Instagram for stealing, but it signals something very fundamental about us, about what is often referred to as human nature.

One of our most basic understandings, one of the few things that exists in the category of unlearned knowledge, is our inclination that things should be fair.We said they weren’t countless times growing up (both legitimately and illegitimately). Very close on the heels of understanding that things should be fair was the understanding that this is mine and it is not yours. When something was ours, we vehemently defended our right to use it, leave it laying on the floor, destroy it, and/or keep you from having it. Probably one of the first ten words we learned was “mine.” We know from a very early age: this belongs to me and it doesn’t belong to you. It is not right for you to take it. It’s that child-like sentiment, grown up and more or less refined, that motivates the surge of jokes and accusations against Instagram of stealing Snapchat’s feature. But it's this innate, inborn moral inclination that really gets my mind working. Ignoring how all of us (myself included) have transgressed even our own understanding in this regard, questions comes to mind. Where does this come from? Who told our five year old selves that the fact that this is mine means so much? Who told us how to feel about theft and injustice of and to ours or other’s property, tangible or intangible?

I once had a biology teacher who claimed that a positive morality was definitely worth the Christian evangelism of the home of his ancestors, Scotland. He would say that he understood the introduction of a Biblical ethic to a people who would routinely steal cattle from one clan, just to have the offended clan steal it back, ad infinitum. While rejecting all the truth claims of the Bible, he was okay to admit that it's value claims had some cultural value. At the time I didn't know how to answer him, nor did I feel I had the place. Assuming the topic comes up again, in retrospect, I would love to ask that teacher one question: why did the offended clan steal it back? Or, in essence, why were they offended? What in them got them riled up? Where did that come from? By no means is it right to seek revenge or institute feuds, but it is right to want justice. That, however, doesn't even need to be said. We feel injustice, unfairness, and theft. Why, my question is, is this? I find the truth to be that we are made in the image of a just God, but are stained images, understanding but not able to do. Broken mirrors, feeling injustice but unable to be wholly and completely just in and of ourselves.