On Tuesday, Instagram launched a new feature called Notes. It lives in the Message section of Instagram and allows people to post a sort of status update, kind of like a Story, but text-only. It’s a lot like the old AIM away messages: You can only post one Note at a time, and updating it will erase your previous status. Also, you can only post with visibility to either “Close Friends” or people who you’re mutuals with.
It’s not totally clear yet what people will use this for. Will it truly be like AIM, where people will post cryptic song lyrics? Will it be like Twitter, but only one brief message at a time? Who knows!
Eventually we’ll all figure out what the Notes “should” look like, and we’ll either all fall in line or the feature will just burn out and go unused, like the old Facebook Poke. I encourage you to take advantage of this moment of confusion about what Notes is and what exactly we’re supposed to use this for.
Yes, I’m suggesting you trick your friends into thinking you posted a rogue DM. Here’s what you should post: “Omg I can’t believe she said that about you!”
WHO? Said WHAT? About WHO? Of course they want to know! A tantalizing piece of gossip! Don’t you want to know who said what?
Ultimately, it's just bait for your friends to message you. And hey, it's nice to hear from them!
If that’s too devious, why not go weird? Post something like:
1. Turkey emoji 🦃. Who doesn’t love a turkey emoji?
2. Your name. Just your first name.
3. "Do you smell that?"
4. “p@ssw0rd”
5. “I love my friends.”
6. 🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃🦃
Will Notes become the hot new thing that you are constantly using, like when Instagram added stories? Or will it be a flop, like when Twitter added Fleets? Too soon to tell. But for now, might as well go goblin mode on social media one last time in 2022.