Instagram’s Candid Challenges Designed for the Gen Z
Author: Team WH
Published On: 26-09-22
Last Updated on: 21-10-22
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Before any of us can remember, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and Twitter, along with all the other social media platforms, have been stealing each other’s content and features.
Nobody even had followers until Twitter came along and coined the term in 2007. Snapchat was the first platform to introduce the concept of “stories,” and now every other platform has it. TikTok was the first platform to introduce the concept of “reels,” and Instagram and Facebook followed suit.
Now that newer generations are adopting new social media platforms, we can observe that this tendency is still going strong. Just like that, a new app called BeReal became the most popular free app available in the Apple iOS App Store.
In the screenshot provided by Alessandro Paluzzi, the button labelled “Join IG Candid Challenge” invites users to participate in the competition.
#Instagram is working on IG Candid Challenges, a feature inspired by @BeReal_App 👀
ℹ️ Add other’s IG Candid to your story tray. And everyday at a different time, get a notification to capture and share a Photo in 2 Minutes. pic.twitter.com/caTCgUPtEV
— Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) August 22, 2022
What Is BeReal?
In 2022, BeReal, the photo-sharing app that challenges its users to post one raw image per day, exploded in popularity. It has surpassed WhatsApp, Facebook, and Messenger to become the most popular social networking app on the App Store right now.
When the app notifies you that it’s time to “be real,” you have two minutes to share whatever it is that you are doing at that moment. These daily prompts will appear at a different time each day with the purpose of giving your followers a view of the unfiltered version of you.
Instagram’s Candid Challenges
Instagram has had to adapt to new user behaviours as a result of changing expectations of the Gen Z users.
While millennials popularised perfectly crafted feeds, the next generation would rather not spend as much time editing their photos or writing witty captions.
Meta revealed that Instagram would soon release a prototype of an app that intends to compete with a new app called IG candid. The Prototype will also allow users to publish an unfiltered photo of themselves at arbitrary intervals during the course of the day.
A spokesperson for Instagram called the feature an “internal prototype” when questioned; the brand has not said whether or not Candid Challenges will be available to other users in the near future.
Is it fair?
It’s nothing new for major social media platforms to steal functionality from one another, so this is not a problem. Still, it does make it more difficult for social media innovators to create new platforms.
Is this a morally justifiable practice, or should there be a trademarking system that prevents social media networks from copy-pasting features from one another?
