Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner, who have two of the largest Instagram followings in the world, both spoke up about how they hate the platform’s new emphasis on reels.
Jenner shared a screenshot of a post on her Instagram Stories Monday that said, “Make Instagram Instagram again. (Stop trying to be tiktok i just want to see cute photos of my friends). Sincerely, everyone.” The 24-year-old added the word “Pleaseeeeeee” to the image.
Her older sister Kim Kardashian shared the same post, per The Verge. A change.org petition associated with the post has more than 160,000 signatures. The petition begs the platform to “bring back chronological timelines” and “go back to the roots” of Instagram, focusing on photos rather than videos, and returning to the original algorithm.
The Kardashians’ sharing of the petition got so much attention that Instagram head Adam Mosseri shared a video on Twitter explaining recent changes to the social media giant and inviting users to provide feedback.
In the video, Mosseri acknowledged that the social media platform is being updated and promised the app will still be photo-focused. He said if anyone is seeing a full-screen version of their feed, it’s just a test and “it’s not yet good.” The exec promised that the new Instagram layout will be improved before it’s rolled out to a larger audience.
“I need to be honest,” Mosseri told Instagram users. “I do believe that more and more of Instagram is going to become video over time. We see this even if we change nothing. We see this even if you just look at chronological feed. If you look at what people share on Instagram, that’s shifting more and more to videos over time.”
Mosseri said the company needs to “lean into that shift” as the audience shares more videos to the platform.
Finally, the CEO discussed recommendations, which the audience has also complained about. “The idea is to help you discover new and interesting things on Instagram that you may not know even exist,” he said. Mosseri told users they can strike out recommendations they don’t like and snooze all recommendations for up to 30 days.
He asked for feedback, and Twitter delivered on that front. User Stefan Etienne wrote, “Stop making everything reels. You’re making everyone from journalists, content creators, CEOs, and celebrities agree. It’s now an app for everything you’re advertising, not of my friends and people I think are cool.”
“When is Instagram going to accept that not all creators are video creators? Graphic designers, photographers, and other visual artists helped build IG and rely on it to share their work,” another person replied. “And now you’re screwing them over to become a 15 sec video streaming site ppl can’t control.”