It’s said imitation is the highest form of flattery, but when capitalism is involved, this isn’t always the case. Instagram’s latest unreleased feature ‘Clips’ is apparently a carbon copy of TikTok, the new social media app behind softbois, E-girls, and this creepy AF five-inch thumb.
In a post on Twitter, reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong – whose job is to basically find unreleased developments planned for social media – revealed Instagram’s new feature, which enables users to record segments of videos into a single video story. It also allows users to overlay music onto clips, and adjust the speed and timer of each video.
Even though most of Instagram’s updates are short-lived and rarely well-received (remember when they gave us horizontal scrolling?), it’s no coincidence that the ones that stick around seem to be familiar. Stories? Thank Snapchat. IGTV? That’s YouTube.
With TikTok’s rising popularity, it was only a matter of time before they became victim to Instagram’s social media dictatorship. Datareportal recently reported that TikTok has 500 million monthly active users. Let the games begin.
