Bas Grasmayer wrote a fantastic piece about Instagram Stories, which opens with "The top row on Instagram excites me"

So Bas likes looking through the Instagram Stories of the people he follows. He says he checks Instagram more often then he did before, and he normally watches all of the stories that show up.

Simply put: they're fun to watch.

Because if you're a person on the Internet, presumably you already have a decent chunk of your network plus a whole lotta randoms already on your Instagram. Because people like watching each other's stories, the engagement is actually really good.

And posting something dumb, a snippet of your day, asking mates to join you for a drink is only fun when people see it, and respond. Which Bas argues is exactly what happens, and anecdotally we can support his claim.

"Who's around for a drink?"
posted 23h ago

^^^ this is worthless

The algorithmic feeds remove this spontaneity and intimacy that comes from something that was never meant to last. In other words: it's not very fun.

The fleeting nature of the Instagram Story, and of course it's muse Snapchat, makes the stakes for creating these ephemeral messages much lower. In other words: more fun. Because they're more fun and less formal than on the other social networks, they're also more fun to watch and respond to.

The Cycle of the Story

• It's fun to post
• It's fun to watch
• Ergo: Your friends will see it
• People actually respond
• Dopamine!!!