Less than a day after appearing on Apple (AAPL) -) and Google Play (GOOGL) -) stores, Meta's (META) -) microblogging app meant to take on growing frustration with Elon Musk's Twitter is seeing user excitement unseen since the early days of social media.
According to Meta head Mark Zuckerberg, more than 10 million people signed up within seven hours of the launch. By the morning of July 6, the app had more than 25 million new users.
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As one's profile is merged directly through one's Instagram (Threads is designed as its text alternative), many of the platform's most popular accounts have already hopped over.
Threads (@parishilton)
Paris Hilton, Oprah Winfrey and Gordon Ramsay Are Posting on Threads
Jack Harlow, Oprah Winfrey, Gordon Ramsay, Kim Kardashian and even the Dalai Lama (although he has yet to post) are already on there.
"Get in babes, we're going to break the internet," socialite Paris Hilton wrote alongside a 2000s-era photo of herself in a car with Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan.
The amount of both celebrities and regular accounts saying "hello" and "I'm here" indeed mirrors the launch and heavy sign-up periods of Facebook and Twitter in the 2000s.
"hi you're here," Instagram wrote from its new Threads account alongside the emoji of two hands making a heart with their thumb and index finger.
"Is this where I find the lamb sauce?" Gordon Ramsay posted in a reference to a 2006 "Hell's Kitchen" episode in which he berates chefs over a bad dish.
Also taking on the nostalgic vibe, the official Netflix account posted a photo of a billboard reminding people that the company "started with DVDs."
As with any new social media platform, the current atmosphere is one of "anything goes" excitement and potential over what it can become — after Musk took over Twitter in October 2022, many expressed concerns over his antagonistic management style (he famously walked into Twitter carrying a kitchen sink and, over the next six months, laid off 80% of the staff as well as anyone who criticized his approach) and plans to scale back moderation of hate speech.
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While the platform has been losing users and floundering for months, frustration spilled over when Twitter blocked people without accounts from viewing tweets at the end of June.
Zuckerberg, in turn, capitalized on users growing tired of Twitter but not having an alternative — while the much-anticipated Threads was supposed to come out on July 6, the release came a day early and immediately sent the internet aflutter.
In his first tweet since January 2022, Zuckerberg came back to Twitter to post a meme of two Spidermans pointing fingers at each other in reference to the battle between the social media platforms. He had formerly also said that Threads was his effort to combat "extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation" on other platforms.
Meta stock also rose nearly 2% in pre-market trading on Thursday and has been rising after the markets opened. While the company has faced challenges over what many analysts see as an over-reliance on the metaverse taking off, company shares are up more than 136% since the start of the year.
"Let's do this," Zuckerberg posted on Threads after the launch. "Welcome to Threads."
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