Facebook Stories makes big move in war against Snapchat

Facebook Stories makes big move in war against Snapchat

Facebook just made its biggest move in its war against Snapchat.

The social network on Tuesday widely released Facebook Stories, a near-identical clone of rival Snapchat's popular feature, also called Stories. The feature lets people post a string of videos and photos that disappear after 24 hours.

If it sounds like you've heard this before, you have. Facebook has already brought Stories to many of its other apps: Instagram has Instagram Stories. WhatsApp has something called Status. Messenger's version is called Messenger Day. But this is the first time Facebook is bringing Stories globally to its marquee app, which gets more than 1.7 billion mobile visitors a month. (Facebook had previously been testing the feature in a handful of countries outside the US, including Ireland and Chile.)

"Yes, this is something that was pioneered by Snapchat," Connor Hayes, a product manager at Facebook, said during a press briefing in San Francisco on Monday. "We think they did a great job of uncovering that Stories as a format is the way that people really want to share photos and videos in social apps."

You can add filters to photos and videos.
Facebook

With Facebook Stories, you can add filters or masks -- what Snapchat calls "lenses" -- to your pictures or videos. For example, you can give someone a unibrow, mustache, sunglasses or glitter beard. (Yes, that's a beard made of digital glitter.) Or you can filter a video so it looks like it was created in the style of a famous artist, like Picasso.

To get to the new camera features, open up the app and swipe right. After you've decided what you want to share, you can post it as a Story, post it on your News Feed, or send it to groups or individuals with another new feature called Direct. Those photos and videos you send with Direct will self-detonate too, just like on Snapchat. The features are available on iPhones and Android phones.

The updates amount to the biggest change to how people can post to Facebook since the social network introduced the News Feed in 2006 or Timelines in 2011. Hayes said that now people take a lot more photos and videos, so these products are meant to keep up with that behavior.

"We think it's our responsibility to update the Facebook app and really upgrade it so [pictures and videos] are more a part of their experience," he said.

But for anyone who uses Snapchat, those products are anything but new. Facebook has a long history of trying to edge out its younger competitor, which is beloved by teens and young adults. Nearly 70 percent of all 18- to 24-year-olds in the US use the app, according to ComScore.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg famously tried to buy Snapchat for $3 billion in 2013, only to have Snapchat cofounder Evan Spiegel balk at the offer. Facebook also built two Snapchat ripoffs, called Poke and Slingshot, that never caught on. They've both been killed. Meanwhile, Snap, Snapchat's parent company, grew to become a formidable Facebook opponent. Earlier this month, Snap went public in a $3.4 billion IPO.

You can post your filter-enhanced images as a Story, add them to your News Feed, or send them to groups or individuals with another new feature called Direct.
Facebook

But while Facebook's early attempts floundered, the company has found some success in trying to clone Snapchat Stories. Instagram Stories, which debuted in August, now has 150 million users a day, and the company said earlier this year that ads are coming in the feature.

For the Facebook Stories launch, the company partnered with two artists, Vancouver-based Douglas Coupland and London-based Hattie Stewart, to create art for some of the filters and effects. Facebook also partnered with movie studios to create masks for movies including "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2," "Wonder Woman" and "Despicable Me 3." That last filter turns your image into a Minion. But Facebook declined to discuss the terms of those partnerships, or its ad strategy going forward.

Zuckerberg seems convinced products like Stories are the way to go. "In most social apps today, a text box is still the default way we share," Zuckerberg told financial analysts in November. "Soon, we believe, a camera will be the main way that we share."

Now, he's taking that bet to hallowed ground for the company: Facebook itself, the social network he created in his dorm room 13 years ago. So get ready, here come the glitter beards.

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Wear same clothes everyday what is a pair of pants two pair of pants this is a pair of pants why are pants called a pair this pair of pants wear the same clothes more we wear the same shirt wear the same clothes more two pair or pairs wearing the same clothes wearing the same clothes every day

Wearing the same pair of pants for a year straight connected me to my past

Wearing the same pair of pants for a year straight connected me to my past

"We're all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?" -- Matt Smith as Doctor Who

The lines on our faces. The scars on our bodies. The electric white of worn denim in the crook of our knees. I was reminded recently why I love raw denim, a fabric that hasn't been treated, prewashed or distressed. My raw-denim jeans start off as a deep, dark blue. As I wear them, a faded line curves along the shape of the pocket knife in my front left pocket. Threads poke out on the seams. An oval of ivory forms on my right knee. My jeans are a story.

That story starts decades ago in Galesburg, Illinois, with two kids running across the lawn of our childhood home. It's me chasing after my older brother Ara. I'm dressed in his hand-me-downs: a striped shirt and red corduroy pants rolled way up at the cuffs. I'm his shadow. I don't want to wear dresses. I want to wear what my brother wears. I want to be like him. All these years later, I haven't changed. It's jeans and T-shirts for us both.

I'm 365 days into wearing the same pair of jeans. (Don't worry. I do wash them.) Along with hundreds of others around the globe, I am participating in a jeans-wearing competition called the Indigo Invitational. One year. One pair of raw jeans that started as pure, unadulterated denim.

My pants are surviving thanks to my amateurish patch jobs. I love these jeans and this "denim-head" community more than ever. It's now the final day of the competition, and it's bittersweet.

When crotch shots are OK

I'm not a crotch shot kinda person, but on March 22, 2021, I posted one to a Facebook group. I took a closeup of the nether regions of my jeans (I wasn't wearing them at the time) where a series of faded spots were starting to show through the fabric, threatening to leave unseemly holes in the crotch (known in the denim-head community as a "crotch blowout"). My post asked for help battling the breakthroughs. The denim denizens of the Indigo Invitational Fade Competition Facebook page didn't bat an eye.

I received a sweet outpouring of suggestions (use old tea towels for patches, find a good denim repair shop) and encouragement. The responses gave me the motivation to get to work on saving my jeans myself. I'm a sewing hack. But it's working. I'm doing my own repairs and my jeans persevere.

Indigo Invitational co-founder Bryan Szabo, a freelance writer and editor who lives in Budapest, Hungary, has pondered why this diverse international group of jeans aficionados is so darn friendly.

"It helps that denim is such a small-d democratic fabric. Though it used to have strong blue-collar and rebellious associations, those connections have largely faded," he tells me. "We're all connected by our love of denim, and I think that the members of the community understand that that love is a beautiful and fragile thing."

This is the second year of the Indigo Invitational. In Year One, 115 "faders" (dedicated wearers who enjoy watching their jeans fade over time) signed up, and 65 finished. Year Two -- which kicked off on Oct. 1, 2020 -- had 850 registrants. Dedicating yourself to wearing a single pair of jeans for months on end and then submitting photographic proof every month isn't easy. There's a high attrition rate. As of July, there were just under 400 competitors still in the mix for Year Two. I'm one of them, and my pants continue to tell their story. My story.

kooseraraamanda — My big brother Ara and me. I've always wanted to be just like him. I later received those pants he's wearing, as a hand-me-down.
Amanda Kooser/CNET

Thanks, brother

My brother isn't participating in the Indigo Invitational, but he's the reason I am. In 2012, our late stepdad (we called him "Pop") sent Ara a pair of raw-denim Tellason jeans, made in California. Pop was like that. He was a librarian, who adored research, and had somehow researched himself into the chill little corner of the fashion world where denim-heads dwell.

I saw my brother's jeans, how they held together, how they faded, how they became unmistakably his, and I wanted that for myself.

This was in keeping with my history as his little sister. I always followed along in his wake, climbing into apple trees, examining colorful rocks on the ground, crawling into caves. He was -- and still is -- an explorer, a vision of what shy, quiet me could become if I only followed his path. That impulse hasn't changed decades later. But there was no way short, lady-hips me was going to fit into my grown lanky brother's hand-me-down jeans, so I had to find my own way into raw denim.

I was tired of fast fashion -- cheap, mass-produced clothes that don't last -- and of jeans that fall apart in mere months. My thighs rub together when I walk, and I would burn through jeans by way of crotch blowouts where the thin fabric would just break apart, usually when I was out in public.

My first pair of raw denim was from Canadian brand Naked and Famous. In 2016, I bought "The Straight" in a fabric described as a "12.5 oz indigo rope dyed Japanese selvedge denim, woven on vintage shuttle looms in a right hand twill construction." You don't have to know what that all means, just know it was a door into a new world for me.

Sisterhood of the raw-denim pants

Raw denim, which goes against the fashion trends of pre-faded, pre-ripped, pre-softened jeans, would be a lonely place for women if it weren't for the internet. Most faders are guys, who have a million more denim options to choose from. Only a select few manufacturers make raw jeans for women.

Suzy Marnell is a self-described military brat, who lives in Texas with her husband and three young boys. I know her through the Indigo Invitational Facebook group, where she's been posting photos of her Brave Star competition jeans and the repairs she's made to keep them in the competition.

Marnell knows what it's like to live our double lives as jeans aficionados embraced by an internet community, but with few real-world jeans buddies who share our passion. "I have a ton of online friends I have made over the years through Instagram and Facebook raw-denim groups, but the majority of my friends in real life have no idea that I am such a nerd for denim," Marnell said.

Suzy Marnell jeans — Indigo Invitational competitor Suzy Marnell did her own repairs on her denim.
Suzy Marnell

Like me, Marnell has lasted into the final month of the competition. She credits her fascination with the evolution of her jeans for keeping her engaged. She describes her experience as a woman in the raw-denim community as "entirely positive." But we can commiserate on the biggest challenges of being women faders: It's hard to find a pair that fits just right.

"I think that discourages a lot of people, especially women," she said. But when you do find that right fit, it's magic. It becomes your second skin, your collaborative storyteller.

One competitor shares a photo to the Facebook group of his legs. It highlights the "stacks," the pile-up of denim above his boots that happens when the pants are long and not cuffed. He had locked himself out of his car and was passing the time enjoying the white fades developing in the material. There's a dad in the group who joined the Indigo Invitational along with his daughter. At the start of the competition, they took photos together along a railroad track, arms around each other, new denim crisp in the glowing sunlight.

Szabo estimates the denim-head community is only about 5% female, but he's seen an uptick in interest over the last few years and hopes denim brands will take notice of a growing following of dedicated women.

"The more [jeans-makers] work on their fits and fabrics, tailoring each to the female form, the easier it will be for us to bring more women into this community," he said. "Once they find a pair that fits them right, the female experience of raw denim is nearly identical to the male one. It's revelatory. There's no going back."

Revelatory. I can attest to that. It doesn't matter whether I look cool to anyone else wearing raw denim; it makes me feel cool. That's saying a lot considering the awkward kid I was: the one wearing oversized Doctor Who T-shirts and begging my mom for a pair of Keds and a Guess bag so I could look just a little bit like the popular girls at school who wore oversized jean jackets, listened to Paula Abdul and had tons of friends.

To wash or not to wash

But enough about my history. Let's get into how this whole one-jeans/one-year thing works. For starters, yes, I absolutely have worn the same pair of jeans every single day since Oct. 1, 2020. I've worn them to band gigs, while planting summer squash in the garden, while climbing the ladders at Bandalier National Monument, while fossil hunting in the Manzanita mountains, while standing at my computer for hours and hours.

kooserjeansbrandnew — Here were my jeans, brand new, a year ago -- dark and crispy.
Amanda Kooser/CNET

I have worn these jeans so much that I'm now sewing patches into the crotch and stringing thread into the thin spots. Others in the competition are doing the same. I see updates on Facebook, where some of the most dedicated members are women posting their pants progress across the months. At this point in the competition, our jeans are showing the strain of so much time and motion.

It's not a requirement to wear your Invitational jeans every day, but most competitors strive to log as much time as possible. Some sleep in their pants. Some don't wash them. At all. They lay them out in the sun or spot-clean them to keep the funk-odor at bay. It's a way to get high-contrast fades that show the stark difference between the dark blue indigo and the white weft hidden in the threads. These are showstopper fades. Desirable fades. Real lookers.

pocket of amanda's jeans — Here is the same pair now. My flashlight has worn a hole through my denim. You can also see the faint outline of a coin on the smaller pocket.
Amanda Kooser/CNET

The whole "to wash or not to wash" question can be a heated topic.

Here's how Szabo does it: "I try to make it to around the 200-wear mark before washing them for the first time, but making it this long isn't exactly easy in the summer, when I'm more active and tend to get my hands (and jeans) dirty." His ultimate advice is perfectly practical: If your jeans stink, wash them.

I've washed my Care Label jeans eight times so far. I do not have electric fades. Mine are what are called "vintage fades," where there's an overall lived-in and worn look to my pants. This will have an impact on my potential performance in the Indigo Invitational, where an international panel of eight judges (denim bloggers and influencers) and community voting will decide who has the best pants at the end of the year.

"It's hard to ignore high-contrast fades. They're difficult to achieve, and they really jump off the screen at you," Szabo tells me. He expects those sort of fades will perform well this year, where one of the top prizes is a week-long trip to Japan, a country famous for raw-denim manufacturers and brands. That reward is sponsored by denim makers Soso, which is putting up $1,500 for airfare and a hotel stay. Other sponsors have pledged gift certificates, jeans, jackets and custom denim for winners.

I ogle eye-popping fades and think "Wow!" But I wouldn't trade my beat-up, lake-blue, multi-washed jeans for anything. I'm not here for the prizes. I'm here for the camaraderie, to know I'm not alone in this, and for the incentive to focus in on a single pair of jeans. And I'm here to be like my brother, and to be a cooler kid now than I was back when it felt like popularity mattered.

I'm taking Szabo's advice: "We urge all competitors to run their own race. Don't try to match your fades to those that appear to be the frontrunners. Tell a story that is yours and yours alone."

Listen to the pants

My jeans have something to say for me. They talk about how I keep my Google Pixel 3A in my back left pocket where it leaves a faded rectangle. They talk about how I like to be prepared, as you can see by the pocket knife fade in the front left and the cylindrical fade of a tiny flashlight on the right. The hushed tones of my right-knee fade speak of me kneeling in the ground, pushing morning glory seeds into the dirt. A UK public-libraries pound coin in the coin pocket etches a secret white circle into the fabric, telling of my love of reading and writing

"Denim is a storytelling fabric like no other," Szabo said.

When you buy jeans that have already been blasted or pre-faded or distressed, you're wearing someone else's tale. When you put on a new pair of raw-denim jeans, you're holding the pen and it's the first word in the first sentence of the first chapter of a yarn of your very own.

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Facebook Stories Makes Big Hole