Mail Online

My goodwill was gone in an Insta

fashion columnist and influencer joanne hegarty

It’s been fascinating and frustrating watching the rebellion that’s been taking place against Instagram’s disastrous move to copy TikTok by promoting videos at the expense of the still photos that made it so popular. It’s also felt personal. I began my affair with Instagram after I had my son nine years ago, discovering a much-needed creative escape from nappy changes and round-the-clock feeds.

Post-new-baby world can be a lonely place for mothers, and the picture-sharing app gave me a precious route to connect with like-minded, supportive women.

Businesses big and small rely on Instagram as a direct line of communication with their customers. Fashion creatives, writers, artists – plus butchers, bakers and candlestick makers – all use it to sell their work. The amazing Dame Deborah James, aka Bowelbabe, raised £7 million, in part through the app.

But the geeky men in Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta-verse – his new name for Facebook which bought Instagram in 2012 – seem determined to ruin this creative community for good. Male ego and competitiveness with Chinese arch-rival TikTok lie behind decisions that are alienating millions of mainly female customers.

The trouble started when Instagram updated its app to predominantly serve up ‘reels’ (short videos). Unlike the still images Instagrammers were used to enjoying, as and when these were posted by those they followed, the videos are suggested by computer algorithms monitoring users’ online habits. I get so many suggestions now that it’s impossible to enjoy my own feed – strangers doing random dances, weddings of people I neither know nor care about, endless kitten videos. Meanwhile,

I get so many suggestions now, it’s impossible to enjoy my own feed

the algorithm ignores and hides the still images I’ve always enjoyed.

I thought it was just me who was irritated. Then US photographer Tati Bruening launched a petition to ‘Make Instagram Instagram again’ with a post that got over 2.25 million likes. That won approval from Kylie Jenner and her sister Kim Kardashian, who have so many followers they could sink a small country. Instagram boss Adam Mosseri posted a video (naturally) defending the company – and was hit by tens of thousands of furious comments.

The fact that Instagram is made up of a different audience base to TikTok, where my teenage nieces like to post videos of their dance routines, seems lost on the blokes in Silicon Valley. They are so detached from the normal world, they don’t understand where their customers’ emotions are coming from. It’s all so breathtakingly maddening.

Follow me on Instagram @thestylistandthewardrobe

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2022-08-14T07:00:00.0000000Z

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