Millions of people have used the social media app TikTok to create and share short, fun, entertaining videos. I, Brian Chen, am not one of them.
Count me as one of those never-TikTokers. As an older millennial, I have exclusively used Facebook’s Instagram to post photos of my dog. I never made a 15-second dance video.
But that all changed last week. That was when Facebook named a TikTok copycat named Reels, which is part of Instagram. His introduction suddenly made making short videos a lot more interesting.
The timing of Facebook was brilliant. That’s because TikTok, which is owned by Chinese internet company ByteDance, has been under a lot of pressure from President Trump. He identified TikTok as a national security threat and threatened to ban the app from the United States, prompting many panicked TikTokers to look for alternatives.
That here was a chance to test Reels and compare to TikTok. I invited Taylor Lorenz, our internet culture writer and resident TikTok expert, to share her thoughts on how the Facebook clone worked against the real thing. With their experience and my novice knowledge, we were able to assess how both the never-TikTokers and the TikTok die-hards could feel about Reels.
The pronunciation? For them, it was: Not good. For me, it was: Familiar.
Let’s start with what has been copied. Both TikTok, a stand-alone app, and Reels, a feature in Instagram, are free to use. With Reels, Instagram mimics the TikTok signature capability to create short video montages, which are loaded with copyrighted music and embellished with effects such as emojis and accelerated motion.
The similarities ended there nicely – and not in a positive way for Instagram.
On Instagram, the videos are published on a feed known as the Explore tab, a mishmash of photos, sponsored posts and long-form videos. On TikTok, videos are displayed via For You, a feed algorithmically adapted to show clips that match your interests. Reels also lacks the editing features of TikTok, such as song recommendations and automatic clip trimming, which use artificial intelligence to speed up the process of making video.
Taylor and I tested Reels every five days and then talked about what we found. We did not hold back.
TAYLOR I can definitely say that Reels is the worst feature I have ever used.
BRIAN Please work out. As a never TikToker, I find that it’s probably the worst Instagram feature I’ve ever used, but your feelings seem stronger than mine.
TAYLOR It’s awful. Reels not only fail like a TikTok clone, but it is confusing, frustrating and impossible to navigate. It’s like Instagram took all the current functionality on Stories (a tool to publish montages of photos and videos with added filters, text and music clips), and they were unrestricted in a separate, new complex interface for no reason.
To me, it’s really unclear for whom this feature is intended.
BRIAN Let’s go through how to use Reels.
To open the feature, tap the Explore button (the magnifying glass) and open someone else’s reel before hitting the camera button to start creating your own reel.
That I should watch someone else’s video before I create my own? This is a waste of time, battery life and cell data.
TAYLOR You can also create a reel by swiping right on Instagram to enter the camera and then selecting Reels, a button next to Story. Somewhat confusing.
BRIAN It is completely undetectable without reading instructions. But OK, you find the button to make a reel. Then you can start recording videos or add videos that you have already recorded. Then you can transfer music and some effects like emojis and color filters. Then you write a caption and publish.
How does this compare to TikTok?
TAYLOR TikTok is better in a million ways. Most importantly, TikTok removes all the friction that normally comes with trying to make a good video.
On TikTok, you can just grab a ton of videos (like, select on 17 different videos of all different lengths), and dump them all into the app and hit a button. TikTok will automatically select highlights from your videos and edit them in a way that matches the beat of whatever sound you choose. This makes it so easy to create a really captivating, smooth video from a ton of footage in less than 10 seconds.
Here is an example of Reels vs. TikTok of the same thing. You can see which is better!
Here is the reel:
And here is the TikTok video:
Oh, wait, did Reels save without sound?
BRIAN Yes. Instagram said there were restrictions and that it was working with third-party rights holders to expand its features. So when you save a video to your device after uploading a video, the music is automatically deleted.
What you describe about TikTok makes Reels just as bad. In Reels, you have to manually select where a music track starts to make sure it syncs with a clip. You say that TikTok automatically does that for you?
TAYLOR In TikTok you have a feature called ‘audio sync’, which everyone uses. You upload a batch of clips, and it will order and trim them to match the sound you choose. It also presents the best songs for each video.
BRIAN Really true? That’s crazy.
For music on Reels I would click on the Audio button and just enter a word that came to mind to search for relevant songs. With this video of my corgi eating bread, I typed the word “hungry” to choose “Hungry Eyes.” Then I had to trim the clips and manually sync part of the song. That took me about 10 minutes.
Now let’s look at an example of a failed reel I’ve never posted. I tried to make a montage of dog bones being scratched. After adding the music, I was able to go back and trim the second clip to be in rhythm with the music, but could not go backwards to trim the first clip of Doberman’s mouth.
Why can I edit the second clip but not the first clip? Instagram said it was still early days and that they were working on the ability to edit previous clips. (Early days, my ass! They’ve been working on Reels for over a year.)
TAYLOR TikTok makes it very easy to make truly entertaining short videos and makes it easy for that content to go viral. Reels makes it hard to make entertaining short videos – and even if you do post them, it’s best you can hope to get some distribution on a full volume Explore site.
A big part of the reason TikToks go viral is that they can be easily downloaded and shared across platforms (with credit built in because they are indicated by the handle).
Reels also lacks the ability to “duet” content, as you can on TikTok. Duets allow users to create side-by-side response videos. This is a core way of users communicating and arguing with each other. It’s basically the TikTok version of a quote tweet.
Finally, Reels has no “friends only” option. On TikTok I can post a video only mutual friends can see. I just want an easy way to post alone to my friends.
BRIAN Right. Right now, the easiest way to do that on Reels is to set up your profile on friends only so that all your posts are visible to friends only. Otherwise, if you share a reel privately with a friend via an instant message, it acts as a Story and disappears after 24 hours. Somewhat confusing.
How long would you say you have spent on making a TikTok versus a reel?
TAYLOR With TikTok I can post a fun video of my day in less than 15 seconds. Reels took me about five minutes.
Some people spend a lot of time editing their TikToks and making these really intricate and awesome videos. But for me, just a casual user who uses TikTok to extract fun highlights from my entire life, that is the time frame.
BRIAN As an Instagram user, I see no benefit in using Reels as opposed to Stories for posting videos. It is extremely confusing for even us to use, which means it will be much more confusing for casual tech users.
I will add that my followers were not impressed by Reels. The reel of my corgi, Max, bread eater, got about 250 likes, from the 300 to 400 likes he normally gets from regular Instagram photos.
Maybe one day I will post more Reels than Instagram catches TikTok. But until then, I think you’ve convinced me to start a TikTok.
TAYLOR I can not make myself a Reel again. I might be able to use it as a repository for re-uploading my TikToks. But over all, it just does not have any of the video editing capabilities I was expecting.
It is also difficult to find and discover other Reels. Part of why it’s so easy to get creative on TikTok is that you are presented every day with a series of trends, memes or challenges. It makes it easy to see what other people are doing and hop on or riff it off. I just do not see what Reels is good for.
BRIAN That’s some gameplay.
