Millennials Will Carry the Initial Adoption of Threads
I’ve spent the past few days on Threads and I’m energized in a way that hits different than when I joined platforms like BeReal, Bluesky, or TikTok. It’s familiar, fun, and creatively inspiring. And I think it’s going to stick, primarily because of Millennial energy initially flooding the space.
This is why I think Millennials specifically will carry the core adoption water and jumpstart the energy that the platform needs to endure:
Millennials don’t have the energy to build something from zero. It’s refreshing to have a built-in following from Instagram and it’s positively overwhelming to join a platform, to see nothing but out-of-context memes from people you don’t know (looking at TikTok, especially), and to have a follower count of zero. This is not our first rodeo. We don’t have time for this. We spent over a decade investing time and energy into consuming content and building a following of friends and strangers that have similar interests. Popping over to Threads and seeing familiar faces (after you turn on the right settings, that is) is a joy.
Millennials “get” Twitter and miss the energy of 2007-2012. Anecdotally, I’ve been seeing that Gen Z is like “ugh, I’m not joining Threads”, and I understand why: they never experienced the golden age of Twitter, AKA the last vestiges of American society having any semblance of a monoculture, like Millennials. You want to talk about the series ending of Breaking Bad? You want to find out what’s going on at SXSW in another part of downtown before you pedicab over the next venue? Do you need to trade intel about marketing tools with other marketers more broadly than inside of your office? Twitter. Gen Z doesn’t see the creative potential of Twitter because they came of age when it became a cesspool. Maybe as we go through moments as a society together, like TV series endings, major film releases, and tragic moments that bind us together as humans, they will be brought along by some cross pollination that they see from the other platforms. There is a societal place for a text-based “Reply model” social medium to enable public discourse and to facilitate the processing of what’s happening in real time.
Millennials don’t have the energy to endure the toxic wasteland of Musk Twitter. It was already toxic before he was a shit-starter on the platform (see: Trump). And when compared, Mark Zuckerberg is a breath of fresh, civil air – surprisingly, even when creating copy-cat features and despite the failures of Facebook and Instagram that have made them harmful in the past. Social networks are Meta’s bread and butter; they know what they’re doing here. Meta won long ago when they snagged a core Facebook audience then continued directly bringing this audience features so that they could stay put and keep their following along the way. Elon underestimated what it takes to restore Twitter and should stick to space and EVs. It’s a devolving, cringey, negative mess over there and many people who loved Twitter have been craving something new for a long time, especially after Elon bought it.
Marketing teams are powered by millennial leadership now. Because they know golden-age Twitter, they inherently see the viable potential of Threads. Brands are going to lean into the platform because it’s a manageable lift with high potential for engagement and reach. To begin, you just drop Twitter and move the strategy over or remember what the Twitter strategy was “back in the day” and start from there. Also, brands can leverage the same approval and legal process that they’ve already been using. And there isn’t as much inertia, because TikTok is a high lift to manage and approve all of that video editing (and the whole China thing makes legal teams nervous). Text posts and static images FTW, baby! Plus, they can count on Meta building an infrastructure that integrates with the business suite. Can you imagine a world where one manages everything from Meta business manager? Ok, let’s be real, it's sure to be kind of a nightmare because that tool can be an ever-changing source of frustration, but it will be kind of easier at the same time.
It's going to be interesting that Millenials, not Gen Z, are going to carry the Threads torch to fruition and influence mass adoption of a new social platform. And I’m sure they’re going to be snarky about it.
Historically, younger folks have taken up the mantle to make a platform buzzy and thriving (Snap, TikTok, etc). But social media has a relatively short history and Millennials aren’t that old.
We were the only “young” generation when social media arrived, so seeing us engaged and fired up in our later adult years is not surprising, and it’s not beyond us to be able to ”get” social media. This would be like Gen Z getting cynical that Millenials know how to stream HBO on an Apple TV – like, duh we aren’t your mom calling you to ask what remote to use. It would be weird to treat us like Boomers when it comes to social media adoption when we were the founders of it.
All this being said, there are things I’m super curious about seeing evolve as Threads catches more momentum and rolls out more features.
What are they doing to curb bots and anonymous pot-stirrers from cluttering and poisoning the well?
What will happen when the next big cultural event happens? How will we engage as a society? When will we get hashtags on Threads?
What is the 2024 election going to look like on the platform?
Will brands and influencers eventually stop being so inauthentically performative as the newness wears off? It’s getting tiring seeing so many brands and people asking questions (“What’s your favorite pasta?” “Show me a picture of your dog!”) and posting click bait as a means of engagement and growing their Thread count. It’s always going to be that way to some degree, but it’s especially thirsty out there right now.
These are crucial questions that will also determine the fate of Threads. And I’m here with my popcorn watching and having a boatload of fun on the platform in the meantime. See you there?
