IG Fails

Big week for social platforms. IG changed its interface, adding tabs for Reels and Shopping, and people are not happy. Twitter added a “disappearing tweets” feature called Fleets, similar to IG and Snapchat Stories, and—surprise!—people are not happy. As humans, we are resistant to change, so this reaction is hardly shocking. Usually, we complain loudly, use the app anyway, get used to it, and then forget we were ever mad about it. But with IG users resisting adopting Reels in a meaningful way, I’m curious if that’s what happens in this case. Or, maybe Instagram walks the change back in another few months and replaces this experiment with something else shiny and new. 

On a more serious note, there’s a small sliver of good news related to this wilted disappointment of a year: The US’s greenhouse gas emissions are on track to fall 9.2 percent compared to last year. This is of course a result of the pandemic, as transportation is the highest-polluting sector of the economy and many of us spent a big part of this year working from home. Globally, emissions are on track to fall 7 percent, the figure that scientists say we’ll need to meet every year this decade to keep climate change at a manageable pace. Since the improvement came as a result of the pandemic and not real action, maintaining that number feels...pretty unlikely.

The two wildest TikToks I saw this week were this video depicting what is easily the most terrifying job on the planet and this video showcasing the most deadly rubber-band fly sniper out there. 

—Darlene Kenney, Marketing Assistant