If you despise slasher films, hate any scene that’ll make you toss your popcorn, and flee spooky previews let alone full-length fright fests, then here’s something really terrifying: Hollywood’s horror industry is coming for you. 

Whether you’ve heard it called a resurgence, a renaissance, or (ugh) scary movies “getting good,” anyone within spitting distance of a box office knows something is up with the horror genre. In the past few years, a storm of scary films with big name stars and high art aspirations has swept over theaters with support from major studios, awards committees, and mainstream audiences. 

From Halloween’s victorious (and lucrative) return to a batch of original nightmares we didn’t know we needed, here’s how 2018 made the elusive, modern-day horror renaissance 100% official.

Looking back on horror history

Let’s set one thing straight right now. Horror did not—I repeat did not—“get good” in 2018. Horror has always been good, but many people are just now getting to the party. (If that’s you, totally cool. Hope you brought chips.) 

In very broad strokes, horror, maybe more than any other genre, has tracked our societal anxieties like a culturally keyed in Freddy Krueger. From George Albert Smith’s 1897 short The X-Ray Fiend, depicting the unsettling abilities of then newly-invented technology, all the way to Jordan Peele’s take on racial tension in 2017’s Get Out, year after year we have seen the horror industry bottle our most prominent fears for cinematic success.

Of course, 2018 audiences think contemporary horror is the best—it’s what they’re living. But more than being topical, 2018’s horror lineup has been special because of the innovative, nuanced approaches we have seen creators take towards universal fears.

2018’s horror lineup in a nutshell

Scary movie creators took a lot of big swings this year, but two major themes stood out: mental health and feminism.

Ari Aster’s Hereditary rightfully tops many outlets’ 2018 horror lists. Starring the incomparable Toni Collette (who is receiving tons of Oscar buzz for her role, by the way), this meditation on trauma captured what it is like for a family to be hijacked by grief. David Bruckner’s The Ritual and Susanne Bier’s Bird Box similarly lament the psychological terror that comes with loss. Notably, The Haunting of Hill House, a series reimagining Shirley Jackson’s novel of the same name, caused a torrent of mental health discussion amongst Netflix streamers—and that’s no surprise considering the conditions in the United States.

On the feminist front, films like CAM and Suspiria went to extremes to reflect on female sexuality and loss of agency, boring in on some central themes of the #MeToo movement. Both films did well with audiences, but no one took back the night quite like Jamie Lee Curtis with her return to the Halloween franchise.

Smashing box office records with a lifetime gross of over $253 million, 2018’s Halloween had old and new fans flocking to see the genre’s most infamous final girl take on Michael Myers one last time. And while the nostalgia was indeed phenomenal fun, the film’s feminist undertones and modern takes on femaleness played no small part in allowing it to take a bite out of audiences.

Hitting on a smattering of less impactful but still ridiculously fun tropes, we had A Quiet Place, Overlord, The Predator, Mandy, The Nun, and Slender Man. Collectively, those six films—a mixture of speciality indies and mainstream releases that make up just a small slice of the overall horror pie—earned a little under a billion dollars at the box office and explored dozens of new, thrilling ways to terrify us.

2019 and beyond

All of that is to say, the horror industry is doing unmistakably well right now. That should be exciting for even the biggest of scaredy cats. 

Horror allows audiences and creators to talk openly about some of the most uncomfortable, shameful, and disquieting parts of the human experience. As more horror enthusiasts emerge from the woodworks and join that conversation, the overall quality of the scary stories we obsess over will likely continue to improve, providing a needed outlet for the culture of tense conflict we currently inhabit.

Looking towards 2019 and 2020, we can already anticipate some major opportunities for success—including sequels to A Quiet Place and It, another installment in the Conjuring franchise, Jordan Peele’s Us, plus remakes of Pet Sematary and Child’s Play. 

But while we wait for those new things that go bump in the night, I highly encourage horror fans to look into the haunted archives and find scary stories of the past. If nothing else, it’s a way of learning to grapple with our fears—and God knows we have plenty of those—as we head deeper into the unknown cavern of nightmares yet to come.

Image: Lane Turner/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Uber changed its logo and Lyft launched pink and purple e-scooters. It’s been a big year for the two big ride-hailing apps.

For the drivers who supply rides ordered via smartphones, Uber and Lyft might say things were pretty good in 2018. Both companies made a big push to improve the driver experience, from Uber’s new app to both Lyft and Uber’s reward programs. But pay has stagnated and driver rights haven’t improved much — issues that the companies don’t want to examine too closely.

In some cities like New York, London, and throughout Australia, the fight is on with local policymakers to reach the demands of the driver community. Drivers are looking to keep more of each fare and get recognized for their work. 

So while drivers and gig workers appeared to be more of a concern this year, it doesn’t mean much if hourly rates barely keep up with minimum wage and companies keep cutting into earnings with their high commissions. 

Uber does have a long list of improvements that came after 2017’s 180 Days of Change campaign. When Dara Khosrowshahi came on as CEO in August 2017, he immediately took on driver issues as a priority. To his credit, right as 2018 started he called for portable benefits and worked with Washington state on legislation. In New York City, a fund for drivers piloted with funding for telemedicine and vision benefits. After only a year of in-app tipping, Uber drivers earned $600 million. (Lyft reached $500 million earned since the start of the company.)

By April, a new driver app debuted with real-time earnings, better notifications, and an improved surge map. Little things continually improved on the app, like hands-free voice commands for drivers and other safety features. A big push for driver loyalty arrived in October with a pilot in select cities called Uber Pro. The rewards system for drivers offers extra earnings, cash back at gas stations, and free tuition for online classes at Arizona State University — nothing to sneer at. 

Lyft closely mirrored what Uber offered up drivers this year and added their own flair with 30 new driver hubs popping up to help drivers, new app designs that changed the tipping process and bumped up tips 20 percent, and a stream of driver changes like dropping the lowest rating, demand charts, and more features coming into the new year. A subtle addition that helped drivers out was mid-ride feedback for shared rides so that criticisms about the route or number of pick-ups was separate from driver ratings.

As Rideshare Guy blogger Harry Campbell said in an email at the end of this month, “2018 brought a lot of positive changes to the driver experience, but not much was done to address the top complaints of low driver pay and high commissions.” He noted that the upcoming IPOs likely mean no rate increases in sight as the companies try to keep costs low.

Jim Conigliaro, Jr., founder of the Independent Drivers Guild representing New York City app-based drivers, is hopeful for 2019. He wrote last week, “2018 began as pretty dark year” that eventually culminated in hard-fought worker victories. 

In New York in particular, this past year saw new Uber and Lyft vehicles capped for a year to study congestion and the effect of ride-hailing apps on cities and a new law that requires a livable, minimum wage bumping up pay to $17.22 an hour for thousands of drivers in the new year.

Findings from the Gridwise driver companion app brought in data from 500,000 rides from 2017 and 2018. The hourly average rate increased less than $3 to $16.66 this year, not taking into account inflation and before costs like gas, car leasing fees, and commission. But things are moving upward.

“We expect a better 2019,” Conigliaro said. Maybe it’ll be the year of the driver. 

This post contains spoilers for Bird Box.

At first blush, Bird Box’s flaws seem inoffensive, if plentiful: A poorly written script, half-baked world-building, paper-thin characters, and the waste of the talents of an Oscar-winning actress on five-year-old screen partners.

But under closer scrutiny, a more sinister byproduct emerges from the failures of Netflix’s Sandra Bullock-starring post-apocalyptic thriller. 

The villainization of people with mental illness in Hollywood is far from new. But Bird Box seems to wear this stigmatization and its sensationalization of suicide like a badge of gritty honor.

Centered around an end-of-day reckoning, Bird Box imagines a world stalked by monsters that drive people to commit suicide at the mere sight of them. 

Everyone, that is, except those with mental illnesses. Instead of killing themselves in gratuitously gory ways like all the “normal” characters, people with mental illnesses become literal agents of evil, obsessed with carrying out the monsters’ mission to destroy humanity. 

The examples of this effect are seen in characters explicitly established dealing with mental illness: former patients from a mental hospital, plus a grocery store clerk described as having gone “to prison and always a bit crazy.”

Image: Saeed Adyani/Netflix

So Bird Box is evidently trying to say something about mental illness through its ill-defined monsters, brought forth as biblical judges for our moral punishment. Exactly what they mean as a metaphor, however, remains frustratingly unclear. 

What is clear is that Bird Box joins a long-standing tradition of mass media perpetuating the myth that people with mental illness are dangerously deranged villains of ultra-violence, rather than the reality that they’re actually more likely to be victims of violence.

This portrayal is everywhere. Aside from being the first topic of speculation about every mass shooter, horror movies as far back as Psycho are built on it, TV shows like Hannibal further embed the myth into our culture, and video games like Outlast dehumanize psychiatric patients in asylums into spooky enemies to be killed for fun.

Bird Box wears this stigmatization  like a badge of gritty honor.

The effect of this accumulatively terrible representation of mental illness has a demonstrable effect. People who suffer from these illnesses would rather stay silent than seek help and be seen as “crazy” social pariahs.

Then there’s Bird Box‘s rather cavalier attitude toward depicting gleefully violent suicides. 

Arguably, these are so far removed from real-world suicides that this sensationalist approach can be seen as more responsible than the more graphically true-to-life ones in shows like 13 Reasons Why. But turning that trauma into cheap, bloody thrills for entertainment certainly leaves a bad taste in the mouths of people who are survivors or who wrestle with suicidal thoughts.

It’s obvious that the creators of Bird Box did not set out to create a film villainizing mental illness or sensationalizing suicide. If you squint at its woefully confused metaphors, there might be an allegory in the monsters as a darkness that perhaps only people who’ve struggled with depression, psychological disorders, etc., would be familiar with.

Yet a lack of awareness does not excuse the harm caused by Bird Box’s flagrant carelessness in handling extremely sensitive subject matter.

In all fairness, the film does make attempts to right some wrongs in the portrayal of people with one kind of physical disability. At the end, Malorie (Bullock) and the kids find a safe haven in a community run by the blind, showing people with a physical disability not only as capable citizens but as strong leaders, guiding the able-bodied into a new world. 

It’s a rare, refreshingly positive reflection of a real-world truth: That what society often views as a pitiable weakness can in so many other ways be a strength. It’s not unlike A Quiet Place‘s laudable representation of deaf character Regan, played beautifully by Millicent Simmonds.

But this destigmatization of disability only goes as far as the physical. Because in Bird Box‘s vision of Eden for survivors of the rapture, there’s no place for people with psychological disabilities.

Image: Merrick Morton/Netflix

For one, the tone of the film encourages us to view those who fight to survive that darkness in the real world with abject horror rather than any sort of empathy

Unlike blindness, mental illness is characterized as seemingly the most unconquerable weakness, rendering those who suffer from it more susceptible rather than more resilient to the darkness that the monsters represent. If anything, the world rules set up by Bird Box should mean they’re more adept at surviving a world cloaked in that unending darkness.

In Bird Box‘s vision of Eden for survivors of the rapture, there’s no place for people with psychological disabilities

For another, Bird Box makes the egregious mistake of depicting these characters as one-dimensional caricatures defined exclusively by their mental illnesses. 

Sure, everyone “normal” who looks at the monsters becomes a brainless zombie. But turning people with mental illnesses into the exact opposite — zealots who survive only as extensions of a monstrous evil — has the incredibly othering effect of denying them even the humanity afforded to all the other characters.

None of this is to say that every “negative” depiction of mental illness, particularly those in horror movies, should not be allowed. In the same year as Bird Box‘s release, Hereditary addressed mental illness and trauma through the lens of horror to increase the audience’s empathy for that internal and generational struggle.

What it comes down to is Bird Box‘s lack of care toward almost every element of its filmmaking. And when it comes how it tackles a real problem through its fantastical premise, it’s a movie that keeps its eyes stubbornly shut.

If you want to talk to someone or are experiencing suicidal thoughts you can text the at 741-741 or call the at 1-800-273-8255. Alternatively, a further list of international resources is available . 

When sweater weather is in full effect and all you want to do is stay inside by the fire, Netflix’s new animated series Hilda brings the magic of exploring the wilderness to your couch.

Based on the acclaimed British graphic novel by Luke Pearson (an Adventure Time veteran, as you might be able to tell from the animation style), with a synth pop intro written by Grimes, its the kind of cartoon that’s as much for millennials as it is for kids. 

But there’s an unwavering sincerity to Hilda that makes it stand out from the other shows of its ilk, like Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, and even Steven Universe. 

A fearless explorer, Hilda lives in the woods with her mom, along with an ever-expanding cast of folklore creatures and legends. Until, that is, a neighborly mishap forces them to move to the nearby city of Trolberg. And metropolitan life turns out to be the only beast Hilda can’t tame.

Watching Hilda feels like going back to that time in childhood when you only needed your imagination for company. You’d play outside with nothing but the intent of fun, only to come back several hours later thoroughly spent and covered in dirt. The world felt big and scary, you tiny and defenseless. But confronting that thrill of the unknown is exactly what made you feel invincible.

With a backdrop of Scandinavian myth and and scenery, it creates a universe where fantasy and reality exist side by side. And nobody questions it. From giants to elves to thunder birds, the fantastical is commonplace — but feels no less magical. 

Watching Hilda feels like going back to that time in childhood when you only needed your imagination for company.

Elves are sticklers for bureaucratic paperwork, for example, but how else are they supposed to protect their invisibility spell without all those forms? And granted, the ill-mannered Wood Man barges into the house uninvited at all hours of the day to use your fireplace without asking, but at least he brings his own wood.

Every rock left unturned in the world of Hilda feels like a new wonder waiting to be discovered — or most likely, a troll baby who’d rather be left alone. Every episode exudes so much warmth and life that you can practically envision Twig, the deerfox, curled up next you.

Without a doubt, Hilda is an ode to the weird kids. You know, the ones who never quite figured out the whole people thing but knew every possible fact about frogs and their social habits.

Like every great fairytale, the stories in Hilda teach important lessons you can bring into the real world without beating you over the head with it: about the value of all life, the magic in the mundane, the power of perception. 

One visual and narrative theme the show often returns to is the question of scale, showing how the world looks so different to an elf versus a human versus a giant. The things that loomed so large and important in your life become indistinguishable dust to a giant. Meanwhile the behaviors you never thought twice about can be experienced as acts of terror to an elvish town.

Hilda is as powerful as it is simple, as fierce as it is gentle-hearted, and as extraordinary as it is ordinary. It’s a quiet adventure. And it rings with all the more resonance for it.  

2018 was a year for bad takes, but also for pretty awful fashion trends. 

The ’90s revival has been fun, but let’s leave the aughts in the aughts. This year saw a resurgence in horrors like low-rise jeans, boot cuts, and the most disastrous of all, Uggs. And in addition to reviving trends that we wish had stayed in the early 2000s, 2018 saw a slew of new terrible trends, too. 

Here are seven fashion trends of 2018 that just shouldn’t exist. 

1. Boot cut jeans

Sorry, but what human being looks good in boot cut jeans? They’re not as secure as skinny jeans and they aren’t as saucy as flared jeans — boot cuts are just awkwardly large. Twitter users immediately trashed GQ for claiming it was “only a matter of time” before a comeback for the hideous pants. 

2. Thigh high Uggs

Worn by pop culture icons like Rihanna and Dua Lipa, Uggs are making a comeback in the worst possible form: thigh highs. YouTuber Safiya Nygaard called wearing them “like wading through peanut butter.” The monstrosity, a collaboration between Ugg and Y/Project, costs a casual $1,380. 

3. Oddly tiny fanny packs

Oh, so we’re back to those weird cellphone holsters that every dad seems to own. A cross between fanny packs and the pouch that held your father’s flip phone in 2010, these absurdly tiny “belt bags” can hold little more than an iPhone. What’s the point? 

4. Sock sneakers

Cardi B may have immortalized the sock heel with “I like those Balenciagas, the ones that look like socks,” but it’s time for the sneaker version of the trend to die. At least you’ll never have to scrounge around your dresser for mismatched socks again — these babies have them built in! 

5. Tiny sunglasses 

<img class="" data-credit-name='Roberi & Fraud‘ data-credit-provider=”custom type” src=”https://i.amz.mshcdn.com/R7axd3GN7pBWLMYrdZKsL3Xzci8=/fit-in/1200×9600/https%3A%2F%2Fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fcard%2Fimage%2F906324%2Fb81a4b48-d7a4-4003-9b4f-3bcbf960ad18.png&#8221; alt=’”I think we will regret this tiny sunglasses look” – Mindy Kaling’ data-fragment=”m!9a57″ data-image=”http://bit.ly/2SpAqEy; data-micro=”1″>

If you’ve ever wanted to look like a vengeful evil genius seeking reparations for a traumatic childhood, maybe the trend is for you. But Mindy Kaling tweeted what we were all thinking: “We will regret this tiny sunglasses look.” The absurd tiny sunglasses need to fade into oblivion into 2019 — seriously, do they even protect your eyes? 

6. Low-rise jeans

<img class="" data-credit-name='rag and bone/intermix‘ data-credit-provider=”custom type” src=”https://i.amz.mshcdn.com/UeD_nOU-yHhD5XbdT2XuMQiam2M=/fit-in/1200×9600/https%3A%2F%2Fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fcard%2Fimage%2F906346%2F935a169d-c1b2-4a5a-95fb-d5eeb1a1a351.png&#8221; alt=”Let’s leave these in 2006.” data-fragment=”m!3464″ data-image=”http://bit.ly/2AioQUU; data-micro=”1″>

Unless you’re pop sensation Britney Spears, it’s physically impossible to comfortably exist while wearing low-rise jeans. You’re either stuck with a horrific wedgie or flashing your buttcrack every time you sit down. Can we leave this trend buried in 2006, please?  

7. Plastic boots

Top Shop infuriated the internet with its clear jeans last year, if the plastic horror show could even be considered “jeans.” But the fashion industry has been churning out clear plastic apparel all through 2018, and created the most cursed accessory to fall upon this world: clear plastic boots. And as Vogue points out, these heeled boots, although kind of cool, are awful for your feet. The more your sweat, the more these heat traps steam up. 

Can we leave all of these awful trends in 2018? 

Image: FOX via Getty Images

After a mild cancellation scare, a sixth season of Brooklyn Nine-Nine is returning in 2019.

The sitcom now has a new home on NBC, where resides another long-running (but more serious) police show in Law and Order: SVU. 

Given they’re neighbors now, NBC put together a trailer which marries the two series, which now makes us want a crossover to be a real thing.

While the two shows would likely be an awkward fit together, fans found the crossover potential to be tantalizing.

Even Melissa Fumero, who plays Amy Santiago on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, wants a slice of that Law & Order action. 

While chances of an actual crossover look pretty remote, we can always hope, right? Season 6 of Brooklyn Nine-Nine premieres on Jan. 10.

A pulsing bright blue light illuminating the sky across Queens, New York on Thursday night had everyone thinking one thing.

But before you even start, it’s not aliens.

Awestruck folks shared footage on Twitter of the strangely glimmering turquoise light, each equally as baffled as the other.

Similar to the 2015 freak-out of Los Angeles, when a ‘blue light’ streaked across the night sky, folks on Twitter declared it one of two things: aliens or something worth calling Ghostbusters for.

Instead of proof that extraterrestrials live among us and the People in Black are the galaxy defenders you always suspected, the glimmering light was reportedly derived from a transformer explosion at a Con Edison power facility in Astoria, according to the New York City Police Department.

Police said the fire was “under control,” as confirmed in a tweet, and the 144th precinct asked citizens to avoid 20th Avenue and 31st Street. NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan confirmed no injuries were sustained in the explosion. 

The New York City Fire Department also tweeted confirmation that it was investigating a transformer incident at Con Edison’s Queens facility. 

City Council Speaker Corey Johnson also noted on Twitter that New York’s LaGuardia airport was “temporarily closed due to power outage resulting from the ConEd transformer explosion,” but was soon back up and running.

Con Edison confirmed on Twitter it was working with the FDNY to respond to the fire, promising more information up ahead. We’ll update this story as we learn more.

So, there you go, the light was caused by a transformer explosion. It’s definitely not aliens. It’s never aliens. But then again…

Image: Getty Images/EyeEm

Fast food is just one of those things that doesn’t get many plaudits.

Filling the gap is Bill Oakley, writer and producer of shows like The Simpsons, Disenchantment, Portlandia, who since early 2018 has been reviewing food from chains like KFC, Taco Bell, and even non-meat options like Impossible Burger.

Anyway, Oakley has developed quite a following because of his reviews, and it’s culminated in the Steamie Awards, an awards show for fast-food.

There are ten celebrity-hosted categories, including bizarre food combination of the year, disappointment of the year, condiment of the year, and belated discovery of the year. You can view them on Oakley’s Instagram page, but we’ve posted a handful here.

Take the plaudits for frozen pizza of the year, for example, which were hosted by The Big Bang Theory co-creator Bill Prady.

Or the award for non-chain burger of the year, presented by Parks and Recreation’s Ben Schwartz.

While Portugal. The Man drummer Jason Sechrist had the honor of announcing the burger of the year.

Now, I think I may just need a Metamucil.

[h/t Vulture]

Image: ullstein bild via Getty Images

Australians will be cranking up the pedestal fans, as extreme heatwave conditions sear across most of the country.

Temperatures have soared above average across much of the continent, peaking at 49.1°C (120.38°F) in the town of Marble Bar in Western Australia, according to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM).

“This is the face of climate change,” Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, a Belgian climate scientist and former vice-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said in a tweet earlier this week.

Since Tuesday, severe to extreme heatwave conditions have been affecting the country, with the highest intensity areas including Western Australia, South Australia, the Northern Territory, and inland Victoria, the BOM reports. Queensland has been experiencing low intensity conditions.

The heatwave has expanded across South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria, and even northeast Tasmania, and is expected to remain static over the weekend before reducing intensity by Monday.

That staggering top 49.1°C (120.38°F) temperature recorded in the former gold mining town of Marble Bar — which battles it out with the town of Wyndham for the title of the hottest place in Australia on average — marks the hottest day since folks started recording the temperature there in 1901.

To put it in perspective, the highest temperature ever recorded in Australia is 50.7°C (123.26°F), recorded in 1960 at South Australia’s Oodnadatta Airport. The official highest recorded temperature in the world is 56.7°C (134°F), which was measured at Greenland Ranch, Death Valley, California on Jul. 10, 1913. 

These extreme temperatures are way above average for Australia’s south in particular at this time of the year. A representative from the BOM told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that most of the country’s southeast had been experiencing temperatures “10 to 14 degrees above average for this time of the year.”

As a result of the extremely high temperatures combined with dry and windy conditions, fire warnings have been issued for parts of Western Australia, South Australia, and Victoria.

It’s not the only extreme heat event Australia has experienced of late. Three blistering heat waves enveloped much of southeastern Australia in January and February 2017. In 2018, Sydney alone saw its hottest day in 80 years in January, and an unseasonably warm April saw heat records broken and below average rainfall across the country, leading to a devastating drought for New South Wales.

In fact, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef will never be the same following the devastating marine heat wave of 2015 and 2016.

As climate change continues to rear its undeniable head — despite the Australian government’s lack of action to tackle it — we can expect more extreme weather events like this up ahead.

Image: lili sams / mashable

You’d think Instagram would know by now that even the smallest changes can send users into a paranoid frenzy. That still didn’t stop the company from unintentionally pushing out a major update that screwed up users’ feeds this morning. 

Annoying and confusing as it may be, the “bug,” which made Instagram feed posts look and feel more like Story posts, underscores an important point: Facebook is preparing for a future where Stories are more important than feeds. 

That’s more evident then ever today, when Instagram abruptly began testing a new horizontally-scrolling UI in which users had to tap through feed posts instead of scrolling, with a much larger group of users than it had originally intended, according to Instagram chief Adam Mosseri. The update, which Instagram PR declared a “bug,” was swiftly rolled back, but not before igniting a massive backlash against the change.

In some corners of Twitter, conspiracy-minded folks even began speculating that Instagram’s “bug” was not actually a bug, but a shady effort to prep users for a feed-less future. 

There’s little reason to believe that’s actually the case here — Instagram rarely, if ever, pushes out massive changes without any explanation — even if it’s an understandable impulse given that trust in Facebook is at an all-time low. It also doesn’t help that a number of Instagram users are still salty about losing their chronologically-sorted feeds in the first place. 

But it is true that the future of Facebook and Instagram depends on Stories, not on the traditional News Feed.

“The Stories format is on a path to surpass feeds as the primary way people share stuff with their friends sometime next year,” Facebook’s Chief Product Officer Chris Cox declared onstage at F8 in April. 

Zuckerberg himself echoed the same sentiment in October, when he noted that sharing to Stories will surpass sharing into feeds in the “not-too-distant future.” It’s worth revisiting his full comments on the subject, made during the company’s third-quarter earnings call, in light of the recent Instagram debacle (emphasis added):

All of the trends that we’ve seen suggest that in the not-too-distant future, people will be sharing more into Stories than they will into feeds. And that the whole market across all of the Stories type of product will be bigger and a market where people are sharing more moments from their days into Stories type products than into Feed type products.  And this happened very quickly. This whole trend has been — is much newer than the trend with News Feed and feeds overall. And it continues to grow incredibly quickly. 

Again, this isn’t to suggest that there’s some big conspiracy to do away with feeds or permanent posts entirely. But it’s worth remembering just how important the Stories format is to Facebook when you think about why Instagram would do these kinds of tests in the first place. In a world where Stories is the most dominant format, of course it makes sense to also change up the dynamics of the main feed to make it look and feel a bit more like Stories. Hell, even Google is aggressively pursuing these kinds of features.

The fact that users also hate these kinds of big changes matters less than you might think. Facebook and Instagram users are notorious for hating pretty much every major change upon launch.  Even News Feed, the most iconic Facebook feature, was initially hated before almost every other service ended up copying it.

Though some people may resent Stories or the influence the feature has had on other apps, it’s becoming just as influential as News Feed was a decade ago. And, just as feeds creeped in to every other app, it’s inevitable too that the mechanics of Stories will soon be showing up in more places before you know it.