On Instagram, there’s a clear divide between posts and stories. The former stay up forever (or until you manually delete them), and are usually reserved for photos and videos you want people to revisit. Stories, on the other hand, disappear after a day, and are a fun way to share quick updates without having to go through an entire post.
This has been the dynamic for years, and it’s worked well. You can click through someone’s stories with ease, and even drop them a message if you find any particular upload interesting enough. With posts, however, you can post comments for all to see, and start a discussion that may last for as long as the post exists on that person’s page.
This week, however, Instagram seems keen on blurring the lines between the two types of uploads: In a post on Threads, the company shared that stories now feature a comment section. That doesn’t mean private comments are going away: You can still tap the “Send message…” text field and share a thought or reaction in DMs. But now you can share a public comment that will stay live as long as the story does, and browse other people’s comments as well.
This feature is just the latest in a recent string of updates from Instagram: Last week, the company rolled out three new features, including the ability to add text and stickers to posts; adding new fonts and animations to text for stories; and upping the carousel photo limit from 10 to 20. The week before, Instagram rolled out Music on Profile, which lets you set a song on your profile other people can preview.
How comments work on Instagram stories
The feature is live as of this article. I did have to force quit Instagram and relaunch it before I saw it for myself.
First, tap on someone’s story. Things will mostly look the same, but notice the new comment icon in the bottom left. Instagram may even direct your attention to the feature the first time you tap a story following the change. Tap on the icon: The first time you do, you’ll see a pop-up explaining how comments work, and that comments are visible to anyone who looks at the story. Dismiss the pop-up, type your comment, hit the blue arrow, and you’re done.
If you don’t see the comment icon, it’s possible that user has story comments disabled, or at least disabled for users who they don’t follow. By default, the feature only lets people comment when they follow you. You can adjust these settings for yourself from Instagram’s in-app settings: Go to your profile, tap the hamburger menu icon, then head to Settings and activity > Comments. Under “Story Comments,” you can choose Everyone, which allows comments from all user; People you follow, the default; or Off, which disables the feature entirely.
