Why We Started Pants

The Problem

Social media has become one of the biggest forces shaping how we spend our time. Most of these apps are built around endless feeds and short videos that keep you scrolling without a natural stopping point. And this design is no accident. Billions of dollars and years of engineering effort have gone into making these systems as addictive as possible.

We kept running into the same pattern. We would open an app to reply to someone, check in on a friend, or look something up, and within minutes, we would be pulled into a feed we didn’t plan to spend time in. What started as a quick check would turn into far more than we intended.

The solutions we tried in the past never really worked for us. Deleting the apps meant losing the features we care about, like messaging and staying in touch. Relying on sheer willpower never lasted long against apps built to pull us back in. Temporarily blocking the apps worked for a short time, but did not make the experience better when we used them again. None of these gave us a way to use social media in a way that actually felt right.

Our Solution

We built Pants to take back control of how we use social media. Instead of getting pulled into hours of scrolling, it lets us check in on friends, respond to messages, and move on with our day.

With Pants, you can remove short-form content like Reels and Shorts, block explore pages and suggested posts, and stop the endless feed from taking over. The apps you already use start to feel simple again, focused on what you opened them for in the first place.

We are a small team of three building Pants from scratch. We wanted something that fits into real life without constant effort or big tradeoffs. Pants gives us a way to use social media on our terms, and we hope it does the same for you.

Caleb, Matt, and Lindsey

Co-Founders, Pants