Instagram stories are the daily highlight reels that have become a rage on social media. Tapping those little circles gives a brief of a day spent. Celebrities, Instagram influencers, complete strangers, connections – all of them post their stories. The human experiences they have, are attention capturing ones.
It could be a random guy on one’s contact list and his life from college up to the downtown Nike store he is sitting in currently. It could be a celebrity telling a tale or two of a vacation well-done or a dinner well-made. These are storytelling by way of videos – and it’s simply addictive.
Instagram stories appear as “little circles” on the user interface. Clicking on these little circles provides insight and an adventurous sojourn in the “exciting” lives of others. It’s definitely not voyeur-ing into other people’s lives. Nor having a binocular and looking up someone’s window. It’s an Instagram story. It’s out there asking people to see it. And when you see it, you are transported into another realm.
It’s not a world of privacy seeking people. Rather the common rhetoric is – “Did you see my story”? And the question doesn’t even need to be asked. Because when a story is out there, it is lapped with glee. There are zillions of story watchers out there. Move over the naptime, bedtime stories. These are a different version of fantastical stories.
Holidaying in remote islands. Sipping lemonade on a hammock in the middle of the ocean. Walking on the cobbled pathways of Milan. Watching a soccer war to the war songs of war-mongering soccer fans in fanatical England. Going exotic in Hawai. Sitting in an oval office overlooking cloud-scraping towers and flying a paper rocket outside. All of this was a story. But now it’s come to life. When people do it for real, it is believable, interesting, emulate-able, relate-able. These are Instagram Stories – and how would they not be addictive.
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There is no persuasion. There are no promotions. The life of a person is on retail for onlookers. Buy this person more of your time by simply watching their stories. Watch them constantly. Be with them where they go. Check where they were an hour ago. Think of them constantly and getting into their social mediascape, when all along you were never even close to their mind scape. Ironical, isn’t it? For someone who follows someone so ardently, the follower is nothing but an anonymous onlooker. Yet every onlooker counts for the followed. Your views count. Else they would fizz away and resurface with another theme, another avatar probably, another set of stories – so that avid circlers re-circle them again.
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The Real Story Behind Instagram Stories
The tappable circles on Instagram made their way into people’s lives in August 2016. Many likened it to Snapchat and thought that this feature would fade away into oblivion. But that was not to be. It doesn’t matter if the idea was taken before, but what matter how the concept is presented. That’s precisely the reason Instagram stories helped Instagram garner 150 million users. As per 99firms, the marketing analytics company, this astounding number was solely the work of Instagram stories.
And as expected, in 2017, the number doubled, reaching 300 million users. The trend was too strong. Anyone thinking that Instagram Stories was old wine in a new bottle caved in. Not because others were hooked on to it, simply because they loved to hear, see, and experience a good story. Who doesn’t love stories? Every soul on this planet would be interested to listen to a good story, a life story, a chronicle of a good week that elapsed, a live event that is streamed at one’s fingertips. All of these are live stories where past, present and future come together. At the end of it all, it’s hard to miss, and even harder to deny, that yes – it is addictive.
Agreed, social media is inherently addictive. But an Insta story has something that makes us mindful of our mindlessness. We know we are in an addiction zone, with a backdoor open to escape out, yet we choose to stay in. Because these stories, after all – and it’s all about perspective. Look at it positively, and derive motivation and inspiration. Look at it negatively, and sulk back in bed, deprived and left out. It’s all about the way content is consumed. Instagram Stories provide that choice. It’s up to the story watcher to decide how to use it.
Wrapping It Up
The lure in the curation. Unlike feeds, an Insta story is not altered or overly edited. Thus, providing an unfiltered view into the lives and stories of storytellers. And this is where the lure is. Social media becomes reality media. People tap those little circles to get reality bites. Little knowing and even lesser caring that life behind those little circles could be a façade or could be the most real thing that is happening out there…. somewhere.
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