5 parts of your life online that didn’t exist 5 years ago

In many ways, social media has replaced, or at least, presented an alternative to actual physical interaction. Talking online has become a part of our daily lives.

ALSO READ: Smartphones are causing mental health problems in young people

Using these platforms, and juggling Twitter conversations while you talk about marriage with your mum seems almost second nature, which is ironic because some of the things you do now simply couldn’t be done 5 years ago. And that’s because they didn’t exist.

Here are five of them.

(1) Posting Instagram Stories:

Yup. 5 years ago, your favourite social media platform for checking up on celebrities, friend and foe only allowed you to post photos.

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Instagram only announced the video-sharing feature in June 2013. Before that, your best chance of getting famous of a short video was on Youtube.

What this means is that 5 years ago, you couldn’t have had a , or a Maraji. Thank God for technology.

(2) Posting Speeches as Tweets:

Back in the day, when the world was a much more peaceful place, Twitter allowed users to post tweets within a 140-character limit.

What this meant was that users often had to say as much as they wanted with as little as possible, or just act deep and post a thread.

Then in 2017, after heavy pressure from some who even wanted the platform to let them edit tweets and basically mop their bad judgement with toilet paper when they wanted, Twitter increased the cap to 280 characters.

ALSO READ: Twitter gave us a story of one couple, two nudes and a threesome

The result has been fairly balanced, although it means the platform has become a lot more absorbing because users have a lot more to work with.

(3) Snapchat Premium:

For those who might be inclined to go searching for Snapchat Premium in their app stores, there is no actual app like that.

Nowadays, Instagram models and Bobrisky (for a short while) sell exclusive sexual content to users who pay a subscription to access the account where it is shared.

ALSO READ: Nigeria’s Instagram Queens are now selling premium live porn

Snapchat and Instagram had been around this time 5 years ago but the people at Bad Ideas HQ simply hadn’t come up with this yet.

(4) Social media jobs:

How did it feel the first time you asked someone what they did and they responded, “social media manager”. Were you shocked or did you sit somewhere and cry about how we had taken this a little too far?

Today, social media is an integral part of the business for many brands, publishers and … well, businesses.

To get the best of the opportunities that these platforms offer, experts who understand the finicky workings get paid to work their magic. According to Social Media Examiner, 92% of marketers report that social media is important to their business.

5 years ago, there was no such thing as a community manager who tried to convert a brand’s social presence into naira or clicks. Halleluyah for job creation.

(5) The Government:

Let’s start by stating the obvious; 5 years ago, we had a government.

What we did not have was leaders of countries and various governments posting information in tweets as if every other means of mass communication have been exhausted.

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A near-perfect case in point is Twitter. The conversation-based platform was averse to politics for a while. Then came hashtags, and then they were used in elections and campaigns to ensure that the message got around.

Soon enough, aspirants began to use platform to appeal to a younger demographic.

Then in 2017, Donald J. Trump became President of the United States and turned his Twitter account into his press secretary. Politicians just spoil everything.