A TikTok look-alike?

Remember when TikTok was all the rage in India? The Chinese-made app had garnered over 200 million users in the country by mid-2020 before it was banned by the Centre in the wake of Chinese aggression in eastern Ladakh. And just like that, Indians lost a major source of pastime, especially when the outer world was closed due to Covid. However, this did not last long, as to fill that market gap left by TikTok, Instagram launched its short-video service Reels a few days later. Hence, those in India did not end up missing TikTok. However, it seems that those abroad are missing Instagram, rather its initial essence as an app you go “to see cute pictures of my friends”, as reality TV and social media star Kylie Jenner put it.