New Instagram Trend© Unsplash

‘Ghost Tagging’ Is The Newest Instagram Trend You Need To Try

Salva Mubarak
Senior Features Writer

Viral Reels dance moves can come and go, but some Instagram trends remain forever. We believe it was Lord Tennyson who wrote these lines in the late 19th century, but there’s no way of knowing for sure.

One of the latest trends that have been gaining popularity on the social media platform is ‘Ghost Tagging’. It’s the practice of subtly tagging or including a person’s username in an Instagram Story in a way that it’s barely noticeable or invisible.

Also known as ‘Soft Tagging’, ‘Blind Tagging’ or ‘Hidden Tagging’, it’s not a new feature or discovery on Instagram but has been growing in popularity recently.

If you’re someone who likes to maintain an ~*aesthetic*~ for your Instagram (no judgements!), then this trend is a God-sent for you as it would allow you to post or repost a Story without ruining the well-curated look of your Instagram.

Woman checking Instagram©Unsplash

So how can you jump on the ‘Ghost Tagging’ train? While uploading a Story, you can type your friend’s username and then use the paint dropper tool to match its colour with the background of the image. You can then pinch the written text to scale it down so that it’s so tiny that it’s almost invisible and can’t be spotted in the video or the photo.

Another way to do this is by dragging the username offscreen to tag your friend, or any account, in a way that’s not visible in the actual Story. Just be careful to not drag the username into the trash can that appears at the bottom of the screen once you long-press any added icon on the Story.

Just like ‘Soft Launching’, the trend where you hint at the possibility of you having a new partner without explicitly revealing your identity or admitting it, this is also a great method to control how much of your life is available for your followers to see and interact with.

So if you’re someone who loves to document their lives on Instagram, then this is a good way of controlling who sees what effortlessly.