Anyone who has checked their Facebook App recently (aka everyone on Earth), probably noticed a “new” feature that was actually a fairly old feature for anyone who has ever used Snapchat or Instagram (again, everyone on Earth). “Stories,” otherwise known as the ability to update everyone in video format about every single thing that happens in your life—preferably with the addition of a cute filter or animal ears—have come to Facebook. And now that Facebook Stories are a thing, it is safe to say that stories are officially dead.
Well, maybe not like dead dead, but they are on life support. Like, you might want to make sure to call Stories up one of these days and see how they’re doing because they might not be with us much longer. Flowers could go a long way here, too. Like every good social media idea that has ever existed, once something comes to Facebook, that thing is no longer cool. It’s like, Newton’s 5th law or something like that. Once your mom is doing something, that thing is over. It’s just science.
Now Facebook obviously isn’t the first to steal Snapchat’s original idea. Instagram unveiled stories in the summer of 2016, forcing all of us to choose between Snapchat’s superior filters and Insta’s easier shareability. Like, on the one hand, you’re already taking photos in Instagram anyway, so all your life’s photos can be easily found in one place. On the other hand, Snapchat has the dog face filter.
Decisions, decisions.
This whole “Facebook Stories” thing may have come as a surprise to those of us who thought we basically knew everything Facebook was up to (we check it every day, after all). Turns out Zuck & co have been low-key testing the “stories” feature since August. And while Instagram at least had the decency to leave Snapchat its signature filters, Facebook has no problem fully stealing Snapchat’s idea and offering basically the exact same service Snapchat has offered for years via the Facebook app. So get ready to see your mom, great aunt, and racist uncle slide into your DMs wearing minion glasses, because that’s definitley already started happening.
So what does this mean for our beloved Snapchat? Well, it’s probably not good. TechCrunch reported that Snapchat’s growth slowed by a full 82% after the launch of Instagram stories, which, again, did not even have the fun filters going for them. So basically, greedy-ass Facebook may have just not only killed the “stories” feature, but it may have killed Snapchat entirely. RIP Snap stories. Though you only last 24 hours, you changed all of our lives forever.
