Instagram adds new effects to Boomerang

It’s been almost five years since Instagram introduced us to the Boomerang effect and since then we’ve seen thousands of “wacky” short videos on loop posted in our social media. But since then there has been no significant update to this feature and we’ve also seen the rise of Snapchat and TikTok which offers more filters and features to make it more interesting. Finally, you now have three new effects that you can add to make your Boomerangs exciting again.

The three new effects can be found on the Boomerang feature in your Instagram Stories. Upon opening the Instagram app, swipe right to go directly to your Stories composer. Swipe left at the bottom of the shutter selector to go to Boomerang. Go ahead and shoot your one-second video normally. You’ll then see an infinity symbol button at the top which will show you the three alternate effects as well as a brand-new video trimmer.

? SlowMo
? Echo
?‍♀️ Duo

Boomerang has new creative twists that'll make you say yaaassssss. Try them all out today. pic.twitter.com/wp0A71RefL

— Instagram (@instagram) January 10, 2020

The three effects you can add are SlowMo, Echo, and Duo. SlowMo will reduce your boomerang to half speed and will play two seconds in each direction to give you a slow-motion effect. Echo will add a motion blur effect so it will give you a translucent trail, creating a “double vision” effect. Lastly, Duo will rewind the clip to the beginning and add a glitchy, texturized effect. There is now also a Trimming option so you can shorten the length of your Boomerang and choosing where it starts and ends.

These new effects are not original, as pointed out by Tech Crunch. Snapchat and TikTok have had their own versions of it. But if you’re more of an Instagram, particularly Instagram Stories user, having these new things can make it fun again to use Boomerang as some have already found it boring and repetitive. It will add a few seconds (or microseconds) of viewing time especially if you use it creatively.

The effects can be found only in Boomerang in Stories and not in the stand-alone Boomerang app just yet. Hopefully, they will also eventually add it to the main Stories and even to the video composers on Instagram.