That Time Dunkin' Brutally Roasted Instagram Reels

In the halcyon days of early 2020, a new social media platform made its way over to the U.S. from China. The app was built around short video clips of people doing all sorts of things, such as eating cereal out of another person's mouth, shaving off half an eyebrow and replacing it with makeup, or sharing viral recipes. As you likely knew from the first sentence, it was TikTok, and while it seemed generally harmless apart from some dangerous trends, per NBC, it actually became a national security threat in the eyes of the United States government.

According to Vox, there was a major concern about TikTok's security in 2020. Former President Donald Trump made threats against the app for being Chinese-owned, as it isn't bound by the same laws and regulations as companies in the U.S. Back then, the concern was that TikTok's parent company ByteDance could use the app for surveillance purposes on Americans. Worries of this type have since re-arisen, according to CNET.

Since it once looked like TikTok was going to be banned in the U.S., Instagram jumped into the fray, offering Instagram Reels, or short, TikTok-like videos that can be shared to the feed just like photos, from singing videos to pancake ASMR by Ree Drummond. The development of Reels was clearly Meta's attempt to compete with TikTok, which has created a large camp of Reels trolls who wish Instagram would stay in its lane. Based on Dunkin's recent tweet, it would appear the chain is on team TikTok.

In "Hamlet," Billy Shakespeare wrote, "Brevity is the soul of wit." That saying is very true on Twitter, where character limits require that any witticism be executed in as few words as possible. When this is done properly, a brilliant insight can be shared, hilarity can ensue, and a savage burn can be executed. Just consider how many times Wendy's has roasted McDonald's on Twitter. Now, it seems that Dunkin' is pulling out the flamethrower and aiming the heat at Instagram Reels.

"It's the first official day of fall which means reels users just found out pumpkin is back," Dunkin' tweeted on September 22. The intent was clearly to imply that TikTok tends to be more hip and with the times — as none of the kids say — while Reels tends to be later on the memes and trends. In a full head-to-head comparison between the two apps, Offeo found that Reels focuses more on entertainment (due to the 90-second time cap on each video), while TikTok videos can be longer and therefore have more deep-dive content. So, Dunkin' might actually have a point about Reels users being a touch out of touch.

It's not clear if Dunkin' has a vested stake in taking down Reels, but the gauntlet has been cast down. So far, Instagram has remained silent, refusing to dignify such tomfoolery with a response.