Instagram Reels are terrible. I'm sorry if you like them but they are just trash. If you haven't heard, Donald Trump threatened to put a block on the app TikTok due to "security concerns." This sparked outrage and mass hysteria across the platform as many users were left uncertain when the ban would be in place. During this time, Instagram and their parent company Facebook decided to roll out, Instagram Reels – a poor man's version of TikTok.
Now back in July, during a Congressional meeting between the United States Congress and the big tech American tech companies the truth was revealed; Facebook was developing a copy of TikTok for their Instagram app. Now having used Reels for five minutes, it literally sucks and the way the app is shoving itself down users' throats is so infuriating. First off, the features being launched with the function are subpar to TikTok. Biases aside, there is no way one can say Reels is better. As a user, you are only allowed to upload 15 seconds of content. There is also no way to balance audio between music and what's in your original video. Add on top the fact that you cannot use custom audios like on TikTok. Do you know that custom song you keep hearing on your FYP? Can't find that in Instagram's very limited search engine, only licensed songs from popular artists.
The only positive I can think with Reels is the fact that the camera quality is excellent
Instagram always has a good camera when you are using the Stories feature. But besides that, it is very limiting and as a regular Instagrammer who posts pictures and such, it is really infuriating. Because no matter how hard I try, I still have to be faced with Reels while I browse. With other social media apps like Snapchat, the areas of the app I do not want to take part in are out of my way like the Discovery feature. However, with Instagram, they decided to reinvent the entire explore page and have Reels take up a good 75% on the screen. And you know what's extra annoying, it's the type of content that appears.
Instagram is way more susceptible to bot accounts and with that, you find videos in
your feed that are super annoying
For example, a lot of "adult bots" roam the site. You see them in comment sections of popular companies like Marvel and Epic Games and they can be really annoying. Well with Reels, they saw the opportunity to showcase content on the border of NSFW. And as someone with multiple Instagram accounts, let me tell you that no matter what account you're on, they always appear.
Now you can hit the "not interested" button but unlike TikTok, the Instagram algorithm is not as advance and cannot fine-tune your explore page to tailor what you want. The amount of times I've hit "not interested" on videos seems irrelevant because the next day it's another video of something that borders on the line of NSFW.
Instagram has always been an app that takes from other companies
Things like Instagram Stories are a success and the company has found a way to make them unique. There are other instances like IGTV which hardly anyone uses. And Reels falls in that category. My hope in the future is that Instagram does not become like Facebook and has too much stuff on the page resulting in an overwhelming interface. But for now, we have to deal with Reels and I hope to god It goes away!
