It seems that Kylie Jenner isn’t “liking” Instagram at the moment.
Earlier this week, the reality star — who is the most-followed woman on Instagram and has the third most followers overall — took to her Instagram Stories to express her frustration with the social media platform, which has been focusing more on video rather than photo content to compete with TikTok.
On Monday, Kylie, 24, reposted an infographic created by photographer Tati Bruening, whose username is @illumitati. The black-and-white infographic read: “Make Instagram Instagram again. (stop trying to be tiktok i just want to see cute photos of my friends.) Sincerely, everyone.” (Bruening has also launched a Change.org petition, which currently has over 195,000 signatures — and counting.)
Sharing the infographic on her Story, Kylie wrote, “PLEASEEEEEEE.” After she reshared the post, “The Kardashians” star sparked a wave of backlash as other celebrities, creators and more joined in on criticizing Instagram’s algorithm.
Her sister, Kim Kardashian, who is the seventh most-followed user on Instagram, also posted the photo, writing, “PRETTY PLEASE.” According to Vulture, Kourtney Kardashian also reshared the post.
It didn’t take long for the criticism to reach the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, who addressed the app’s “different changes” in a two-minute video, including a current test feature in a user’s feed appears full-screen.
“I also want to be clear. It’s not yet good,” he said of the new feature, before then discussing the platform “shifting to video.”
“Now, I want to be clear: we’re going to continue to support photos,” Mosseri said, noting that photo is a part of Instagram’s “heritage,” before adding, “That said, I need to be honest. I do believe that more and more of Instagram is going to become video over time.” Mosseri also claimed that users themselves have shifted toward video, changes aside. “So we’re going to have to lean into that shift, while continuing to support photos.”
He went on to address the “recommendations” feature, in which users see content on their feed from people they don’t follow.
“Now, if you’re seeing things in your Feed that are recommendations that you’re not interested in, that means that we’re doing a bad job ranking. And we need to improve” Mosseri said, noting that he believes the feature “is one of the most effective and important ways to help creators reach more people.”
Check out his video, below.
Alongside the video, Mosseri wrote, “There’s a lot happening on Instagram right now. I wanted to address a few things we’re working on to make Instagram a better experience. Please let me know what you think.”
Among those who weighed in was Chrissy Teigen, who bluntly replied, “we don’t wanna make videos Adam lol.” In response, Mosseri said, “If you don’t want to make videos, it’s better not to. What I want is an Instagram that is about photos who prefer photos, and is about video for those who prefer that format.”
Meanwhile, as for Kylie specifically, if her massive amount of followers and celebrity status weren’t enough to prove her influence on the world of social media, it’s also worth noting that back in 2018 Kylie simply tweeted that she wasn’t using Snapchat anymore.
After the ghost app changed its interface, the beauty mogul tweeted, “sooo does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore? Or is it just me… ugh this is so sad.”
As noted by The New York Times, shortly after Kylie shared her tweet, Snapchat’s parent company, lost $1.3 billion.
So it goes without saying that Instagram may want to listen to Kylie unless it wants a Snapchat situation on its hands.
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