Earlier that year, team members had an idea for a feature called Boomerang that would allow people to take a quick succession of images that would combine into a short video, playing forward and then reversing, and then forward, and then reversing. It made simple movements entertaining: cake would be cut and uncut, water would be spilled and unspilled, over and over. Instagram employees John Barnett and Alex Li, expecting the idea would be rejected by Systrom, didn’t approach him about it.
