Why Almost All Your Instagram Videos Become Rolls
In case you haven’t noticed yet, Instagram is very heavily promoting Reels, its in-app clone of TikTok. Since Reels launched in 2020, the Meta-owned image-sharing app has almost begged people to use the feature (rather than just post their own TikTok there ). Whether you’ve created any videos or not, soon you won’t have a choice: over the next few weeks, if you post a video less than 15 minutes long, it will be a video. Here’s what you need to know.
What are drums again?
Instagram has been flirting with this idea for months now. In January , the company confirmed that it had begun testing a possible cutscene for all videos, pushing the change to just a few users. At the time, a spokesperson said the change was “part of our efforts to simplify and improve the video experience on Instagram.”
Movies are short videos that users can edit with special effects, filters, and separate audio tracks. They are essentially the same as TikTok: there are basic audio clips that users can either lip-sync to or react to, there are app-specific trends, and there is an element of discoverability. Until this new change went into effect, Reels had their own channels in the Discovery section of the app, and they appeared in a unique tab on each creator’s profile, separate from other video offerings like IGTV posts. (IGTV posts will still be available for any video over 15 minutes long.) Videos, unlike other videos, take up the entire screen while playing.
There are many in-app editing features for Reels, including the ability to speed up and slow down videos, and edit clips together. This makes it different from, say, the Story feature, or even the old way of posting videos to the grid. Just like TikTok, any original audio that a user adds to a video becomes an audio clip that other programmers can use in their own videos. This is important later.
Other users will be able to use your Audio Reel.
Any video shorter than 15 minutes will now be considered a video, although videos posted before the change takes effect will remain in their normal format. All of these videos and clips will be available in one “video” tab in the profile. It’s important to note that any video content included in the carousel does not become a movie; the carousels stay independent of your video tab, staying in the regular grid on your page.
The most notable thing here is that anyone with a public account will now face the possibility that their original audio may be used by other people in their videos, so be aware. Instagram also said in announcing the change that anyone with a public account now has the right to view their videos and recommend them to more people through the Discover page. On the other hand, for private users, their videos (and audio clips) will be viewed only by subscribers. One thing that public users can control is remixes, which are the drum equivalent of TikTok duets. In the settings, you can turn off the ability for other people to remix your video, depriving them of the ability to re-post your content with their addition or reaction.
In the next few weeks, the expanded remix feature will also allow users to remix public photos to create a clip or add their reaction to an existing clip after it’s played instead of next to each other while it’s playing.
While Instagram is clearly biting TikTok, it has also borrowed a feature from another popular app, BeReal : With a new dual feature, users can record with the front and rear cameras at the same time, showing their content and reactions at the same time.