Instagram Threads — Meta’s fast-growing rival to X (Twitter’s former self) with over 400 million monthly users — is rolling out a feature that could totally change how people use the app: Communities.
Starting this week, Threads users can now join more than 100 official communities on topics like basketball, TV shows, K-pop, books, and more. Think of it as Meta giving users their own little corner of the app to nerd out about what they love most. And here’s the fun part: every community gets its own custom Like emoji. So, in the NBA Threads community, you tap a basketball to like posts. In Book Threads? A cute stack of books. Tiny detail, but it adds some personality.
Now, if this sounds a bit like X’s Communities, you’re not wrong — but there are some big differences. On X, users create and moderate communities themselves (very Reddit-like), and only members can jump into discussions. Threads, on the other hand, takes a more controlled approach. Meta builds the communities, not users, and even non-members can join conversations. Plus, once you join, your membership and related topic tags appear on your profile — no hiding your K-pop obsession.
Meta says this move isn’t random — it’s building on what Threads users were already doing. From the app’s early days, people organized themselves around Topic Tags (Meta’s hashtag remix without the “#”). Some, like NBA Threads, became unofficial communities on their own. Communities basically take that behavior and make it official, with extra features like reorderable feeds so you can set your favorite community as your default view.
Meta also teased upgrades: smarter ranking systems to push the best posts higher, badges for active community builders, and more official communities coming soon.
In short: Threads is taking a page from Twitter’s early playbook — watch how users behave, then bake that into the platform. The result? A social app that’s quietly becoming a real contender for X’s throne.
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