Instagram Blend is like that unwanted guest at a cool party

For the most part, Instagram understands me in ways I didn’t think was possible. When I’m low, it throws up a video of an Uber driver politely telling his passenger, Shanice, that her mouth is “moving a lot like a rat (yapa yapa yapa yapa)” and to “shut it, please. (Thank you, Shanice).” When I get too exuberant, it produces a disappointing affirmation to remind me that “life sucks, and then you die”—(I agree, Jacob Black). When I’m in a fight with my partner and unwilling to meet him halfway, it suggests that maybe I’m the problem. When I wake up on a Monday morning empty of the will to show up at the office, a Victorian work meme will pop up to commiserate with my woes.

But every now and then, Instagram misses the mark entirely. Doing away with chronological feeds? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Instagram notes? A pitiful facsimile of the BBM status and the kind of feature you would expect your parents to be excited about. Recommending I sign up for Threads mid-scroll? Try suggesting that to my sleep therapist who accuses me of spending too much time on my phone. Just a few days ago, we got Instagram Blend, an update that allows users to scroll reels based on mutual preferences by clicking the icon featuring two merged faces in their DMs with a friend/group. While it’s too early to gauge whether this feature is headed the Reels-way to heaven or the Threads-way to hell, my money is on the latter.

My opinion isn’t unfounded. Last night, my partner and I tried a Blend session and let’s just say that the resulting cocktail of reels was less than savoury. “Why do you watch so many videos of hydraulic presses crushing things?” I screamed, more flabbergasted than bored. “Not another Sanrio video—it’s been five months since you returned from Japan,” he groaned in response. Our Blend lasted all of 45 seconds before we went back to scrolling our own feeds. The relief was palpable.

Perhaps I could chalk the failure of my first Instagram Blend down to experimenting with a straight man incapable of resisting a good hydraulic press smash. So today, I Blended with one of my gay besties… and it was somehow worse. Apart from the fact that every other reel featured a shirtless twink whom I had no interest in, even the videos we would’ve both guffawed at if received via DM, extorted, at best, a half-chuckle. We also couldn’t quite manage to sync up our viewing patterns—he, diligently watching every reel to completion; me, watching them at 2x if I wasn’t abandoning them mid-way. Duration of Blend session: 54 seconds.