People frequenting social media are known for developing their own slang and words in order to communicate with each other in a fun and easy way. Acronyms that come from Instagram and other social media tend to confuse people who are not frequent users of social media. It is often that people hear, “DM me this”. But what does DM stand for?
What Does “DM” Meaning on Instagram?
DM stands for “Direct Message”. On Instagram, people use Direct Messages, or DM to communicate with other users. DM’s are private messages that users can use to send each other text messages, posts, voice recordings, Instagram Profiles, hashtags, locations, pictures and videos from their galleries as well as stories that other users upload.
DM Meaning on Instagram
DM’ing someone on Instagram means to send an Instagram user a message using Instagram’s Direct Messaging (DM) service. You can send a DM to anyone on Instagram, even if you don’t follow them. If a DM is sent by you to a user who hasn’t followed you, it will be shown to the other user as a request, which they will have to accept in order to be able to reply to you.
How to use “DM” on Instagram
You can access Instagram’s DM services by tapping on the chat bubble in the top- right hand corner.
This will take you to another screen where you can see people who have sent messages to you as well as people you have sent messages to. If you don’t see anyone, don’t worry. It just means that you haven’t sent or received a DM from anyone.
When you want to send someone a DM, you can search for users using the search bar, which will let you search users to send direct messages to.
Instagram has also launched a new feature called Notes, which you can also see on this screen. In order to reply to these Notes, you can tap on them and then send them a reply to their notes as well.
As for the term “DM”, it may be used in the following ways:
- Hey, could you DM me the details on Instagram?
- I received a DM from Max yesterday night.
- Can you send this post to me on my DM?
- I am thinking about DMing Tyler.
How do you Reply to “DM” on Instagram
To reply to a DM, go to the chat screen by tapping on the chat bubble again. Then, tap on the chat you would like to reply to. A chat that is highlighted by bright white text indicates that you have a new message from that chat that you haven’t opened yet.
Once you open the chat, you can type out a reply to their message. You can also press and hold a message to react to it using emojis. Swiping right on the other person’s message and swiping left on your messages will let you reply to that particular message in particular. This can be helpful if you would like to address a certain message in particular or if there are multiple messages that have different answers and you would like to highlight them separately without confusing the other person which reply is for which message.
Alternative Meaning of “DM”
When it comes to social media, Direct Messaging, or DM is a feature that is available on almost each of them. DM can however be referred to by different names, such as PM or Private Messaging or Private Mail, IM or Instant Messaging as well as Chat.
Outside of social media and the internet, DM is used to refer to the Dungeon Master, who is the person in charge of organizing the game as well as creating the various quests and challenges in a game of Dungeons and Dragons.
Origins of “DM” and Other Online Slang
The first form of DM’s were called Instant Messaging, or IM’s. They were a result of the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) protocol getting popular and widely adopted by people as a means of communication.To use IRC, users often had to download and install a program, after which users could create and join groups or rooms, called “Channels” where multiple users could send and receive messages. IRC could also be used to talk to users one-on-one using private messaging, which were like emails, as well as a chat system and also share files using IRC. They were mostly used by people who were adept at computers and had a lot of technical knowledge, since IRC’s were not very user friendly and had confusing and complicated interfaces which were hard to understand for novice users.
With time, as the internet became more accessible to the general public and with the introduction of Instant Messengers like AOL Instant Messenger, MySpace and Yahoo Messenger, the popularity of IRC started to drop. Later on, with major advances made in the realm of software, social networks as well as the internet resulted in websites that integrated a chat feature within the website itself, the most notable being Facebook. After that, DM’s were used frequently and today are a part of every major social network.
DM Meaning on Snapchat
The meaning of DM remains similar on Snapchat, which indicates the private messaging system available on the service.
DM Meaning in Chat
When asked to DM something in a chat, it may mean that the sender is asking the recipient to send something in the form of a Private Message.
FAQs
“DM” on Instagram stands for direct messaging.
Due to private messaging available on every platform, people may often ask you to send them something on a particular service or website. For example: “Do you have the photos from last night? Could you DM it to me on Instagram?”.
“DM me” can be used by a person to ask another person to send them a message on their direct messages.
In a sexual context, direct messages are often used to strike up a conversation with someone you are interested in but have not talked to before. It is often referred to as, “Sliding into” someone’s DMs.
“DM” on Facebook stands for direct messaging.
