Instagram see how many times they watched their story

Snapchat popularized the concept of disappearing photos, only to be overtaken by Instagram when Evan Spiegel refused to sell Snapchat to Mark Zuckerburg. Yes, Snapchat still exists, but it lives in the shadow of larger, more dominant social networks. That said, I tip my hat to the Snap team. I know many designers who’ve worked there and they make awesome stuff.

Stories on Instagram are weird. They’ve largely overtaken photos as the primary mechanism for creating content, but they’re ephemeral. Viewing stories is a tiny part of Instagram even though most of your friends aren’t actively making Reels.

This got me thinking about the wannabe influencer friend we all have who puts way too much effort into creating a story. What if there was a way to see how many times they view their own stories?

This would out so many people (even people with small followings) as vain. It’s an unhinged feature, but could also make for a cool sharing mechanism that would upset your friends. I don’t see this getting shipped for obvious reasons, but there’d be a lot of backlash if it did.

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