Myspace’s Top 8 is a distant memory. The Facebook pokers have laid down their pointer fingers. Snapchat scores are so yesterday. We might soon be vying for spots in yet another secretsocial mediacircle, if a new Instagram feature being tested with select users comes to fruition. Dubbed “flipside,” this new feature reportedly creates an entirely separate photo grid for only designated friends to see. No, it’s not a finsta, and it’s not Close Friends either. These friends are even closer-er.
“[Flipside is] yet another way to reach a smaller audience on top of secondary accunts and close friends,” wrote Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri onThreadslast week. The feature was just in the internal testing phase in December, and Instagram quietly rolled it out to select users, while still at this point uncommitted to making flipside widely available.
According toTechCrunch,flipside works by swiping down on a user’s profile. If you’re granted access to thedark-flipside, the screen will flip (get it?) to show a previously hidden photo feed. Not all details about flipside are clear yet. For example, we know that flipside pics have to follow Instagram’s rules (so this isnotInstagram after dark), and we know that the feature not only offers an alternate photo grid, it also can change profile details like the bio and profile picture. But it’s not entirely clear if flipside would actually inject the flipside photos into followers' main feeds, if there will be an alternate feed of every flipside profile you have access to, or if followers must directly access the hidden feed only by visiting your profile. The last option implies that, if you theoretically have access to 20 friends' flipsides, you’d have to remember to occasionally individually check 20 different private feeds — if you even cared enough to do so.
Is Instagram having an identity crisis as smaller, more curated social media circles become more prevalent? News of flipside comes just a few months after Instagram debuted its “Close Friends” development, which allowed users to filter individual photos, videos, or reels only to followers designated within that audience. The flipside test being hot on the heels of Close Friends' expansion from stories into the main feed has some users questioning the future of Close Friends, as shown in recentThreadsactivity.
Other social media apps are figuring out the best formula for different tiers of private sharing, with varying success. Snapchat, of course, allows users to create multiple different story audiences at their own discretion, making it easy to filter story posts based on friend circle, place or event, or special interest.BeRealand Locket, on the other hand, are apps designed solely for interacting with the closest of friends, encouraging the trading of spontaneous, completely unfiltered pictures. Flipside is currently only available to a small subset of test users, so hopefully they’ll have feedback for Instagram on how to make this feature as productive as it can be.
