Here's The Deal With Colored Text In Insta Stories

The social media world has been ablaze with excitement ever since Instagram decided to take on Snapchat in a battle for photo sharing domination. If that sounds serious, it's because it is. Because Instagram's new Stories feature is very similar to Snapchat's, many have been wondering — can you change the color of the text in Instagram stories? Can the silly and entertaining aspects of Snapchat be transferable to an app with permanent photo features? I've played around with it this morning, and it seems that the answer is no — at least for now. Luckily, there are plenty of cute ways you can get around it.

But to understand how to use Instagram stories, you first have to understand that, although it's similar, there are some slight differences between Snapchat and Instagram. We all know what makes Snapchat unique — unlike other social media sites like Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat does not create concern about over-posting. Since no one likes to be that person, posting 20 statuses and photos a day, many social media sites lag behind Snapchat in daily use. Instagram very savvily put forth their own version of Stories that would get people interacting with their app more and more, but unlike Snapchat, it doesn't let you know if it's been screenshotted, and people can't comment directly on them. Other than that, though, we seem to have solved the age-old problem of wondering if you're over-posting on Instagram. Pretty smart, Instagram, pretty smart.

While the idea behind the feature is pure genius, actual use has proven that the new addition is slightly different from the version we are all already used to. There are no fun face swapping features, stickers or even color changing text. That's right. You will not be able to change the color of your text overlaid on top of your photo. Too bad for anyone wearing all white, I guess! Luckily, there's a fun way to get around this.

Once you take your selfie/landscape/party/food photo, click on the icon that lets you draw over the photo. Select a brushstroke that is pretty thick. You want to do this because it will save you a ton of time.

You can now select any of the colors presented (including white and black, which are always tough to get on Snapchat) and draw a little rectangle of color. It will serve as a backdrop for your text and allow it to pop out against the colorful background. Now you can wear what ever color you want!

The opaqueness of the color block helps you to keep the integrity of your photo while at the same time getting around the lack of colored text. Also, as a wonderful bonus, the text feature allows you to press enter and start a new line of text. Instagram might not be letting you have the things you are used to, but they have built off an original idea and have given you some cool new things to love.

Images: Dasha Fayvinova