Are you ready for everything to look like TikTok?

Since TikTok burst into mainstream consciousness, many things have been called a “TikTok clone”: YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, Snapchat Spotlight, Netflix’s Clips, LinkedIn’s vertical video feed, and countless other, less recognizable names like Triller, Zynn, and Byte. For years now, Facebook and Instagram have pumped users’ feeds with video as Meta chases TikTok’s runaway success. But if tests running abroad are any indication, the TikTok-ification of social media might finally be reaching its fullest form. TechCrunch reports that some users in India are getting a Facebook test that, upon opening the app, drops them directly into an immersive, full-screen video feed. Meta hinted that this “experience” would be coming to “video-heavy countries” first, followed by a potential US expansion in 2027. At the same time, Romania-based app researcher Radu Oncescu noticed an option on Instagram to have Reels be the first thing a user sees when they open the app. Instagram Stories remain at the top of the feed, per screenshots from Oncescu, while swiping the screen pulls up the traditional feed of posts from accounts a user follows. Sound is on for Reels by default. Meta spokesperson Devi Narasimhan told The Verge that the Instagram test is live in a handful of countries, but didn’t specify which. Users can switch back to the original layout, Narasimhan says, and Reels will be unmuted once a user swipes or clicks into a video. [Media: There’s still a chance Instagram and Facebook won’t end up looking exactly like TikTok — not all tests become permanent features. But we have been barreling toward this for a long time, with some user pushback along the way that always seems to get ironed out. Video content made for quick consumption is clearly a priority for Meta. Even Threads, Meta’s text-based platform that reaches half a billion people every month, was barely mentioned in the company’s recent earnings call. What was mentioned? Time users spent watching videos on Facebook (up 9 percent globally and 10 percent in the US and Canada), improvements to the ranking system used for Reels, and ranking models that the company says can “identify high-quality new Reels at creation.” TikTok’s — and by extension, its copycats’ — focus on video has reshaped all of the industries that depend upon such platforms for distribution. Podcasts have become videos, which have become clips. TV shows have become “microdramas” and movies have been chopped up into 50 parts. Political astroturfing has taken on the form of “user-generated content.” It’s not clear if users actually prefer video over text or images, or if they simply engage with it because it’s what social media platforms have placed directly in front of them — engagement is engagement, so platforms likely don’t care either way. But as social media has turned video-focused, users report posting less online. Morning Consult polling found that while 81 percent of US respondents reported watching an Instagram Reel, only 39 percent say they’ve posted one. What happens when watching videos is the backbone of what we do online, yet relatively few people want to make them in the first place? This explains, at least in part, why platforms tolerate or even recommend AI slop content. Whether a slowdown in posting is because of the move to video is anyone’s guess, but it’s clear we have all become voyeurs. The potential for Instagram and Facebook to become video feeds by default would be a seismic shift in form. But it would also mark the end of a more philosophical distinction: that these platforms are for keeping in touch with people. It was painful enough to ask writers, photographers, nonprofits, podcasters, and other creatives to spin up video content studios just to avoid being rendered invisible by the algorithm. It’s another to ask your aunt and old college roommate to do the same or get bumped onto a different page, easily forgotten. Time will tell if engagement is high enough for Meta to go forward with these tests in the US and other regions. If and when it does expand, at least we will have seen it coming.