Immediately after this week’s episode of Severance on Apple TV+ — and, honestly, probably during — I’m going to open up Threads and bash out a post or two, in addition to checking out the latest theories from fans who are as hooked as I am on Apple’s dystopian workplace thriller.
That’s because, with respect to a colleague of mine who wrote a post last summer about Threads feeling “empty,” I’ve actually found the exact opposite to be true. Meta’s newest social network is buzzing — dare I say, a-twitter — with activity. I may or may not be a representative user, but all I know is that my posts get orders of magnitude more engagement than they ever did on X, and I’m likewise bombarded with so many notifications from Threads that I have to regularly just turn them off.
Overall, I’ve found it to be a safe space for sanity thus far, with mostly nice people, little to no ads, and a generally pleasant user experience.
Of course, I know that won’t last. The ads will come. So will the weirdos. Eventually, Meta will start salivating over how it can squeeze revenue out of every single pixel of the app, at which point Threads will go the way of Facebook and Instagram — morphing into something more transactional, less personal, and ultimately, a place where the joy of spontaneous connection is replaced by the constant pull of ads and algorithms.
For now, though, I’m telling you: If you’re someone who’s longed for social media the way it used to be, all you need to do is just start rocking with Threads. I certainly think I would have enjoyed the current seasons of Severance (and of Hulu’s twist-filled Paradise) much less without my fellow superfans all chiming in on Threads with theories, posts, and memes. Those, by the way, are the TV shows I’ve been the most obsessed with over the last several weeks, and the Threads algorithm certainly picked up on my interest.
In fact, at least for the time being, I’ve found that the app’s algorithm does a pretty good job of serving up the Threads posts that you want to see based on the things you post about and engage with. For me, it’s been a lot of TV up to this point, but I don’t solely post about TV; I inadvertently kicked up a hornet’s nest the other day by raving about Anora — but even the quality of the, shall we say, intense comments that I got on that post was still better than the sewage you get from X.
Basically, Threads has zeroed in on that thing its sister apps Instagram and Facebook apparently got tired of — showing users the content that they actually want to see. I know, what a concept! By the way, you can follow me on Threads at @andymeek. But as much as I love the app, though, I’m warning you, Zuckerberg: The minute you bring that Reels and Stories nonsense over here, I’m out.
