Coke or Pepsi?

Netflix or Disney+?

Twitter or Threads?

When it comes to choosing the establishment over the newcomer, I’m the kind of person who would choose the former. Like with many of my peers, I usually base my choices on what many of my friends tell me (yes, call me a conformist).

For example with Pepsi, I never tried it before (yes, call me a Pepsi virgin) because I heard from my friends that Coke is better. So I never felt the need to go out of my way and try Pepsi no matter how many celebrities endorse it. 

Though if I ever were to have a girlfriend who prefers Pepsi over Coke and would ask me to try it, then perhaps I would give in – wouldn’t any boyfriend do the same for his significant other?

Anyway, the same goes for Netflix. I’m a big K-drama viewer, and so I’ve never given Disney+ a chance because Netflix far surpasses the Mickey streaming service in its K-drama content.

In this case, if my girlfriend were to ask me to start subscribing to Disney+, I would hold my ground here. The main reason has to do with finances.

Disney+ costs $10.99 a month, and I would find it a waste of my parents’ money because I already have Netflix, which costs $15.49 a month. Also, Disney+ is not just a one-time payment – as in the case with putting down $2.29 for a Pepsi bottle at Target.

So when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg introduced Threads earlier this summer on July 5 to directly compete with Elon Musk’s Twitter – now known as “X” – this new social media service ended up in the same category as Pepsi and Disney+ or any other challenger of the status quo.

I’m not going to waste my time setting up an account to try it out. 

It was different with X.

I first created my account during the middle of seventh grade when we were in online school during the COVID-19 pandemic. I started using that social media platform because I was really fascinated with the video game, Fortnite, and since I had created a Discord account in 2019, those posting information on that social media platform alerted me to the value of X.

I would find that a lot of people would post their Fortnite videos or clips on X, so I decided to get it so I can satisfy my gaming curiosity. 

Since I had a lot of time on my hands (thanks to distance learning), I figured out how to use X on my own. I even posted some responses to my friends’ X tweets. I can’t provide any examples of proof that I’ve done this as my comments may be rated R and were posted only for my friends to view.

And although I never signed up for a Threads account, I did check it out on my friend’s phone last month. I was just scrolling through different people’s posts to see what differences it has compared to X.

Some point to Threads as having an advantage over X because it has nearly double the character use at 500 instead of 280.

That’s not a big deal for most teens, especially gamers out there like me who prefer brevity over verbosity. We want to be able to quickly share information on upcoming games, strategies, updates and highlights without the need for a wordy explanation.

Additionally, when scrolling through both apps, I find it easier for me to read X posts. It is way more facile to read short tweets and understand the point users are trying to share than to skim over what could be longer posts on Threads.

And while video game posts were what drew me to X, the same will not happen with Zuckerburg’s latest social media platform. I doubt any such videos or comments would be unique only to Threads.

So even though I cannot predict my future social media habits, I can definitively stand firm during my remaining high school years that X will still remain supreme for me. And if I were to have a special someone who starts posting her comments on X’s competition, I plan on sticking by my man Musk. 

Coke, Netflix and X. These mainstays serve me best. And it only took me nine words to write that.