Reality TV celebrities Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian have lashed out at the Instagram video pivot, saying that the app should remain focused on photos. They call on Instagram to “stop trying to be TikTok.”
Instagram head Adam Mosseri responded with – what else? – a video in which he effectively shrugged, and said the transition is happening whether or not the company encourages it …
Business Insider reported on the row.
Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian, who have a combined 686 million followers on Instagram, told Instagram to “stop trying to be TikTok” in story updates on Monday […]
The message the two both shared said: “Make Instagram Instagram again (stop trying to be TikTok. I just want to see cute photos of my friends). Sincerely, everyone.”
The models and influencer-businesswomen, who are half-sisters, are powerful voices on social media. Jenner has 360 million followers on Instagram, while Kardashian has 326 million.
It’s a message you’d expect Instagram to take seriously – in part because the views of pop culture figures can have real-world impacts. When Jenner said back in 2018 that she had stopped using Snapchat, the company saw $1.3B wiped from its market value.
Jenner was giving high-profile voice to a view shared by more than a million users of the app: that they hate the redesign and want the old Snapchat back.
But also because, as with Snapchat, the high-profile figures are echoing comments made by many others; that Instagram is supposed to be a photo app, and instead is looking increasingly like a video one.
However, Instagram appears to be taking the same approach as Snapchat: arguing that people have to accept change. Adam Mosseri didn’t deny that the company was pivoting to video, but said that it still valued photos. He argued that the growing popularity of video makes the change inevitable, whether or not the company does anything to accelerate the trend.
“I’m hearing a lot of concerns right now about photos, and how we’re shifting to video. Now, I want to be clear: We’re going to continue to support photos. It’s part of our heritage, I love photos, I know a lot of you out there love photos too.
That said, I need to be honest. 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. If you look at what people like and consume and share on Instagram, that’s also shifting more and more to video over time – even when we stop changing anything. So, we’re going to have to lean into that shift, while continuing to support photos.
That line is unlikely to satisfy critics, who will argue that they already have other apps if they want to share or view video, and that this isn’t what they want from Instagram. “Continuing to support photos” is hardly the line you expect from an app which is supposed to be all about photos. But watch Mosseri’s argument below, and let us know in the comments what you think.
Photo: Eaters Collective/Unsplash
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