Kim Kardashian is one of the reigning queens of Instagram, but she sent the app into an absolute frenzy today when the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star unfollowed literally EVERYONE.
Everyone was shooketh, to say the least. The police were almost called, people were calling in sick to work, the world nearly shut down. (*Exaggerration for creative licence*)
She unfollowed her family members, brands, close friends and brands, so there were theories of rifts and arguments as well as a new promotional tactic.
Think back to when Taylor Swift's Instagram went black, and came back to life with snakes before she released the iconic Reputation album.
Kim quickly took to Twitter to reveal it was all just a glitch, seeming as confused as the rest of us. She wrote, "OMG what???? What’s going on????" in a totally calm response.
There was an unnecessary amount of question marks used, in our opinion. She also told a fan, "No it’s a mistake. I have to remember everyone I followed now and add everyone. I have no idea what happened.”
no it’s a mistake. I have to remember everyone I followed now and add everyone. I have no idea what happened https://t.co/SQ2FW8QZxK
In another social media moment, she took to her Instagram stories to explain that she intended on following the same people again, tweeting;
"We’re working on figuring out what happened but I will start following people back if I can remember everyone. I tried following people again and now looks like at zero again."
Currently, Kim is following 74 people, including sisters Kourtney, Khloe, Kendall and Kylie, and #momager Kris. The level of panic this has caused is borderline mass hysteria, but we remain entertained nonetheless.
The two teased their new project via their Instagram stories yesterday, saying, "How to deal with a break-up? Or how to help a friend dealing with a break-up? Go!!!"
Niamh and Aideen suggested that their followers ask them questions, but their fans had no idea that a podcast was coming.
We're assuming that Influencer is a Dirty Word is about life as Instagram royalty, brand ambassadors and garnering a following of thousands, while looking and feeling great.
This is major news for the influencer industry, which is growing more and more competitive.
We can't wait to hear all their gossip about their work-life, wellness tips and discussions about young women going through problems in their daily lives.
The gals are unreal on their own, but we're delighted they've decided to come together for the magic of podcasts. It's sure to be a great one to listen to with your mates and a bottle of Pinot Grigio.
Any eagle-eyed fans of Kylie Jenner and Ariana Grande MAY have noticed that the gals lost millions of Instagram followers overnight.
Jenner and Grande are two of the most followed people on the social media site, with Ari dropping from 145 million to 142, and Kylie dropping from 127 million to 124 million.
It probably isn't a major deal for them, but definitely is problematic for smaller influencers and YouTube creators. So what happened with Instagram, we ask?
We’re aware of an issue that is causing a change in account follower numbers for some people right now. We’re working to resolve this as quickly as possible.
Instagram is currently investigating an issue that is causing some of the biggest accounts to lose millions of followers overnight, and took to Twitter to elaborate:
“We’re aware of an issue that is causing a change in account follower numbers for some people right now. We’re working to resolve this as quickly as possible.”
James Charles and Zach Clayton, some of the larger names on the site, both tweeted about the issue, with MUA Charles saying; "Why did I just lose over half a million followers, Instagram. What you doing, sis?”
why did I just lose over half a million followers @instagram wyd sis
An original suggestion from Fast Company claimed that Instagram was taking action "to remove millions of accounts the company believed to be inauthentic." Translation: BOTS.
A lot of companies undergo random sweeps of their user bases to get rid of inactive accounts or spam, with Insta announcing in November that it was hoping to remove more fake accounts on the platform/
“We will begin removing inauthentic likes, follows and comments from accounts that use third-party apps to boost their popularity. We’ve built machine learning tools to help identify accounts that use these services and remove the inauthentic activity.”
Update: we’re expecting to have this issue resolved by 9 a.m. PST tomorrow. We understand this is frustrating, and our team is hard at work to get things back to normal.
They later updated their status to say that the issue would be revolved by 9am today, Valentine's Day. The team "are hard at work to get things back to normal". Hmmm, suspish.
The site began removing locked accounts from Twitter since last July, so maybe they just cleared out the bots and the uproar over follower counts has them regretting it?
Kensington Palace lost a massive 150,000 followers overnight, but the page recovered them today. It could be beneficial for influencers to have an awareness of what their 'real' follower count is, rather than just fake bots.
So Instagram is currently having a glitch where people are being automatically unfollowed.
This is the perfect time to unfollow people you have always wanted to, and then blame it on Instagram. You’re welcome x
Some social media users got clever by suggesting you could unfollow anyone your heart desires for this one day and blame it on Instagram, which we have to say is pure genius.
The uproar is uniquely fascinating in pointing out the dependency of many on the website and their follower count.
If anyone has any cool conspiracy theories on the matter, we'd love to hear them. Instagram are blaming it on a bug, but is it more than that? We do love a good mystery…
Instagram has become part and parcel of our daily life – and while we may scroll endlessly just for fun, some people rely on the app to supplement their income.
Influencers need engagement on their Instagram content in order to monetise it and work with brands, and in recent weeks, many have taken to social media to complain their their engagement is taking a downturn.
Theories have emerged that perhaps Instagram is decreasing people's reach on the app in order to entice content creators to boost their reach with a paid-for ad.
We’ve noticed an uptick in posts about Instagram limiting the reach of your photos to 7% of your followers, and would love to clear this up.
Many influencers have noted that their engagement is as low as 7% – and the app has taken to Twitter to respond.
'We’ve noticed an uptick in posts about Instagram limiting the reach of your photos to 7% of your followers, and would love to clear this up,' reads a series of tweets from @instagram.
'What shows up first in your feed is determined by what posts and accounts you engage with the most, as well as other contributing factors such as the timeliness of posts, how often you use Instagram, how many people you follow, etc.'
'We have not made any recent changes to feed ranking, and we never hide posts from people you're following – if you keep scrolling, you will see them all.'
'Again, your feed is personalized to you and evolves over time based on how you use Instagram.'
Not everyone is convinced by the statement, with arguments ensuing (as always) in the comments section.
When Stormi was born, her mother spoke about how wonderful the experience of pregnancy had been for her, after logging off social media for the entire nine months,
"Pregnancy has been the most beautiful, empowering, and life-changing experience I've had in my entire life and I'm actually going to miss it," Kylie wrote to her millions of followers.
"I appreciate my friends and especially my family for helping me make this special moment as private as we could. My beautiful and healthy baby girl arrived February 1st and I just couldn't wait to share this blessing," she added.
"I've never felt love and happiness like this I could burst! Thank you for understanding."
Kylie has consistently documented her baby girl's numerous milestones throughout the last 12 months with her fans, and shared her desire for another child.
E! News reported that Kylie and Travis plan on welcoming baby number two, "sooner rather than later," claiming, "She wants lots of babies and for them to be close in age."
Their current family of three look over the moon with joy, Happy first birthday Stormi, you're one lucky baby.
Irish YouTuber Seán McLoughlin, who has almost 21 MILLION subscribers, has now become one of the video platform's highest paid stars, according to Forbes.
The 28-year-old, who is known to his many followers as Jacksepticeye, earned a whopping €14 million from mid-2017 until May 2018.
This means that the star is number eight in the publication's top 10 highest earners.
Hailing from Athlone, Seán McLoughlin has been uploading reviews and commentaries on video games for nearly seven years, and in total his videos have been viewed over 10 billion times.
He refers to his own videos as an “assault on the senses” that people “either love or hate”, and says using curse words is a major key to his success, weirdly enough.
“The more you swear the better. People react very positively to that, apparently.” Strange… but very Irish.
McLoughlin has made a Disney series despite the dodgy bad language, and is developing content for the live-streaming platform Twitch.
He has also launched Cloak, a a “high-end athleisure and lifestyle line for gamers”, with Mark Fischbach (YouTube name Markiplier), who is number six on Forbes' list.
Pre-sale items in the range sold out in 48 hours, but our question is why do gamers need sporty clothing?
The tob earning Youtube channels currently are Ryan ToysReview, Jake Paul, Dude Perfect, DanTDM, Jeffree Star, VanossGaming, VanossGaming and Logan Paul. Yep, the one who filmed a dead body.
Ryan, of Ryan ToysReview, has over 17 million followers and almost 26 billion views. Oh, and he’s also seven years old. The child millionaire earned most of his money from adverts shown before his videos.
Wow…2018 is a wild ride. Baby millionaires, people who film dead bodies earning a fortune and video-gamers forking in €14 million from their laptops.
'Blackfishing' is the bizarre beauty trend that has the internet exploding, and we want to know your feelings on the matter.
In case anyone is confused about the meaning behind the term, 'blackfishing' is relatively new phrase describing people who pretend to have a different ethnicity online, specifically non-Caucasian.
It ahs become increasingly common amongst young white women on Instagram who use certain filters and language to pose as black or Asian, whether for attention or to capitalise, but other internet users deny that there is any racist intentions behind it.
We are SHOOK at this new information; some users online seemingly even use dark filters, are deliberately ambiguous about their face, wear make-up much darker than their natural complexion and use false or altered hair to appear flawlessly black or Asian.
A young woman named Odinaka even created a Twitter account (which was later suspended) dedicated to outing any reported cases of evident 'blackfishing' from white women.
"I created the account because I thought that there was really an alarming amount of white women posing as black women," she told The Cut.
“It’s very annoying to see people who aren’t black get praised…but yet actual black people get called things like hoodrat, ghetto and ratchet,” Odinaka said.
"They’re gaining success by appearing to look like me while I work ten times as hard to get where I really want to be. It’s unfair."
These white girls are out here claiming to be Native, editing themselves to look Asian, and doing blackface.
Writer Wanna Thompson spoke to Buzzfeed regarding the alarming trend of 'blackfishing', where she claimed that more responsibility needs to be undertaken when it comes to ethnic transparency:
“It’s clear that a lot of black women are being overlooked for these white women, so that narrative needs to change"
Speaking about the latest infamous incident involving model Emma Hallberg, she said:
"Nobody is saying you can’t get a tan or modify your appearance but she was intentionally ignoring the comments from black women specifically who genuinely wanted an honest dialogue…Her resistance to own up to her ‘blackfishing’ makes me wonder if she truly cares about black voices at all.”
Swedish Instagram model Hallberg is the latest influencer who has landed in MAJOR trouble after being called out for potential cultural appropriation.
Social media users are now claiming that the 19-year-old influencer has been "pretending to be black" online, but she is adamantly denying these accusations.
According to Hallberg, everyone in her family has naturally curly hair and tan easily, and she has never fully clarified her race on her account. However, this explanation didn't stop the torrent of hate which was heading her way.
Emma is frequently seen sporting a heavily tanned skin complexion and has even appeared on Instagram pages promoting black models, therefore many social media users assumed she was mixed race.
Understandably, the internet nearly lost it's mind, and a storm of angry responses erupted as more alleged examples of 'blackfishing' were noted.
Some people deny the trend altogether, believing that models simply use methods of tanning as part of their personal beauty regime:
if yall think ariana grande wearing a bit of fake tan is classed as blackface you would have a fucking field day coming to northern britain
However, many people online commented on the double standards which are present, emphasising that black women are often criticised for being unprofessional or unkempt for their braided or 'untameable' hair.
Some have even sent home from school for their appearance, yet some (apparently Caucasian) influencers are complimented on their aesthetic.
Many of the accused responded with statements reiterating that they were never trying to appear as another race in the first place, the usual responses were regarding make-up preferences, tanning and hair types such as cornrows and perms.
Supposed Asian 'blackfishers' have also been revealed online, with people changing the shape of their face to appear as another ethnicity:
There is much division surrounding the intentions behind these social media influencers; some deny that celebrities such as Kim Kardashian mean any harm when they adopt typically 'black' styles such as braids or dreadlocks.
The prominent issue is that Caucasian people who adopt these racial beauty styles are possibly capitalising on them, while still having white privilege.
Others defend those online for their beauty habits, stating that they have never been pretending to change skin tone, only adopting new trends or even just complimenting other cultures.
Whether it's the up-and-coming fashion blogger or that girl who just gets way too many likes on her selfie, there is a whole world of phony social media stars who have coughed up to culminate more followers than they would have organically.
There are hundreds of apps in the app store which allow people to falsify their followers list.
Some involve payment schemes, where people can buy bundles of hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of followers and likes at a single click.
Generally, these apps seem to have a database of inactive ghost accounts that they can use to follow or like your page and content.
Sometimes the accounts are very obviously fake, with random names with jumbled up letters and numbers, but when mixed in with a person's organic following, they can be overlooked.
Other apps allow people to engage in a rapid fire round of "like 4 like" and "follow 4 follow" behaviour, where for every like doled out by the wannabe Insta star, one is received back.
Popular Dublin-based foodie blog Yummy Dublin has come across people in the influencer industry who utilise the faux follower apps.
"After working on my foodstagram for months and building up an organic following of my own, I was browsing Instagram for other Irish foodie pages to follow," said Yummy owner Amanda Holtz.
"I came across another girl's foodstagram in the area, and I was impressed by her follower count in such a short amount of time."
"She had about 4000 followers in only a few short months, which is really good."
"I looked through her followers as I was impressed, and saw that they were mostly from Asian countries which is unusual for a Dublin-based food account that only posts about Dublin or Irish food establishments. "
"I can't say for sure if they're being bought, but to those people who do it – It's just a slap in the face for those of us who have put in months of hard work to grow an organic following."
"But at the end of the day you just have to know that what you're doing is right."
"It might be hard to resist buying followers if your competition is tough, but I would feel like a fake doing that! It is completely by worth it to do it the old fashioned way," Amanda finished.
Wellness mega-blogger Jordan Younger of The Balanced Blonde also previously discovered that so many bloggers she had admired for years were monetarily inflating their likes and following.
"Specific people who I’d believed to be getting all these likes all the time were total shams," she wrote on her blog.
Other follower fans turn to things called "Instagram pods" to get their fix of fake friends.
These pods are suited to different niches, so one pod may only be for fitness bloggers, one for fashion and beauty bloggers, or one for people who just want more likes on their latest selfie.
The rules of these pods dictate that everyone in the pod must like and comment on every post that each other person in the pod puts up, which mean that real people will be liking and commenting on the photos, but not of their own volition.
It is a mutually beneficial arrangement, and with some pods hosting thousands of members – that's a lot of likes to swap for some of your own.
There are even websites which offer to sell bundles of hashtags to help users gain the maximum amount of likes from a post.
These means of purchasing fake likes and followers show how important social media validation has become in our hyper-filtered society.
It's not just bloggers and brands using these methods to grow a fake following, but regular people too, which reflects just how much people have come to care about how popular they seem on social media.
The singer then retweeted their post and said: "Dang that is tight."
The performer is an avid tweeter and often tweets to keep her fans updated with music and behind-the-scenes snaps. However, she also takes to the social media site to share her political and philosophical views and also show off her gas sense of humour.
Kim Kardashian is often regarded as the queen of social media and today that has been made pretty much official.
Since signing up to the photo-sharing service Kim and Beyoncé have always been neck-and-neck in terms of rallying up the Instagram troops – but now the reality television star has now come out in front, becoming the world's most followed individual.
As both edged closer towards an astonishing 44million followers, it was hard to know who was going to hit the mark first… but Kim was victorious and now Beyoncé trails by just 100,000 (a drop in the ocean by their standards).
Although, the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star's could have a lot to do with how much information she shares with the world: she rarely holds anything back and even posted a naked selfie recently to prove her pregnancy.
Beyoncé, on the other hand, is quite private as she rarely even posts a caption with her photographs. And a lot of what she does post are professionally taken pictures for glossy magazines.
Kim's sisters Kendall, Kylie and Khloe join her in the top ten, with her mother and older sis Kourtney trailing behind in the top 20.
Although Kim seems to be taking over the world one social media platform at a time, an inside has told Times Live that Kris Jenner thinks Kylie will outshine Kim soon.
Kris was one of the guests in attendance at Jennifer Lawrence's birthday bash over the weekend and it is said that she spent the night gushing about the youngest of the clan.
The source said: "Kris spent much of the night proudly talking about her daughters and how much people loved them. Kris also went on and on about how Kylie is going to be even more popular and famous than Kim, as she's already much more famous at 18 than Kim was.''
And another source told HollywoodLife.com: ''All her life, Kylie's been groomed for stardom and Kris knows it. She thinks Kylie's relationship with Tyga could quite possibly pull in more viewers and be bigger than Kim and Kanye's wedding.
''If that were to happen, Kris would flirt with the idea of having Kylie and Tyga do their own show, if they're willing.''
Kim Kardashian is well known for sharing photos that don't leave much to the imagination, and yesterday was no exception.
The 34-year-old posted a picture of her cleavage to celebrate the fact that she has reached 42 million followers on Instagram and didn't make much of an attempt to include her face in the snap.
Kim has shared many pictures in the past which showed off her curves and has on more than one occasion broken the Internet.
A photo posted by Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian) on
Recently, Kim's daring photographs have included a full pvc outfit post on Saturday night with sister Kourtney for the celebrations of her youngest sister Kylie's 18th birthday which falls today.
Kylie's official party doesn't take place until Friday night and we can't wait to see what she will be wearing for that.
Pregnant Kim is no stranger to posting pictures of her boobs as she once shared a very racey photo of herself covered entirely in silver paint on Instagram.
A photo posted by Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian) on
Reaching 42 million followers keeps Kim in third place in the most followed people on Instagram behind Beyonce at 42.6 million and Instagram have 90.7 million.
This landmark is just 165 days after Kim hit 27 million followers as she has been gaining a new follower every three seconds since posting a picture of her world famous bum in February.
Harry Styles better up his Twitter game because Niall Horan is catching up with him after hitting 19 million followers!
This makes him the most followed Irish man on Twitter –pretty impressive for a 20-year-old lad from Mullingar eh? He’s put Ronan Keating to shame too – he’s only got 478,000 followers.
Katy Perry is still the reigning queen of Twitter with 54 million followers, but we have no doubt that Niall will earn his crown in no time!
