Two of Instagram’s most-followed celebs — Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner — want the Meta-owned social service to stop trying to mimic surging rival TikTok.
Both sisters posted the same message to Instagram Stories, which read: “Make Instagram Instagram Again.”It goes on. “(stop trying to be tiktok i just want to see cute photos of my friends). Sincerely, Everyone.”
Instagram has been promoting Reels, a short-form feature of Instagram that mirrors the format popularized TikTok’s video.
Who cares what a pair of famous-for-being-famous influencers think? Well, millions. Kylie Jenner has more than 360 million followers on Instagram — she’s the No. 2 most-followed account, after football star Cristiano Ronaldo — and Kim Kardashian has over 326 million.
The Change.org petition that the sisters’ referenced in their Instagram Stories, which launched July 22, had fewer than 100,000 signatures before the Kardashians threw their support behind it. It now has over 140,000 signatures as of Tuesday morning.
“We have TikTok for a reason, and let’s face it, the only [Instagram] reels uploaded are recycled TikToks and content that the world has already seen,”The petition was launched by the group four days ago photographer Tati Bruening (@Illumitati), reads. “What’s innovative and unique about old stale content? Nothing!”
In a video post TuesdayPerhaps in response to the Kardashians’ comments, Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s head, reiterated that video will be a priority.
“I’m hearing a lot of concerns about right now about photos and how we’re shifting to video,”He stated. “Now, I want to be clear, we’re gonna continue to support photos. It’s part of our heritage.” Mosseri continued, “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 do nothing… So we’re gonna have to lean into that shift.”
Meta has been battling TikTok for time share and has begun to push more video features into Instagram. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Instagram told analysts that Instagram Reels account for more than 20% in time spent on the application. But it’s still early days in terms of generating revenue from that short-form video consumption, according to Meta.
Meta hired a political lobbying company to insinuate negative opinions about TikTok last year. Meta supported the campaign with a rep saying that: “We believe all platforms, including TikTok, should face a level of scrutiny consistent with their growing success.”