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Unless you're a miracle person who hasn't checked Instagram yet today — or doesn't have it at all? — you've probably experienced a wave of posts imploring you to "Turn on notifications!!!"
The rumor fueling the furor was that Instagram was planning to revamp its news feed on Tuesday, killing its reverse chronological format in favor of surfacing popular photos and those from users whose pictures you comment on and fave more often. Electing to turn on post notifications for specific users would allow you to always see their stuff.
Naturally, everyone panicked and started begging their followers to flip that switch. And though today may go down in history as the Great Thirst Crisis of 2016, you can see why such a change would make some people (and organizations) nervous. It could, for instance, make life a lot more difficult for newbie brands with very slim marketing budgets looking to make a name for themselves through Instagram, which is free.
Models like Karen Elson, Caroline de Maigret, and Jaime King posted notes asking for their fans to turn on notifications. Even teen beauty entrepreneur Kylie Jenner — who has less to worry about with this update than anybody, with her 56 million Instagram followers and ability to get 524,000 faves on a single post endorsing something called "FitTea" — posted a harshly worded note to the app on Monday.
According to Instagram, though, everyone can calm right down. Reached for comment by Racked, a rep for the company said, "This meme is false. There are still weeks, or even months, of testing to come before we roll this out more broadly. Currently the test groups are very small. We will let the community know before any changes are made." Instagram itself issued a statement on Twitter on Monday afternoon.
We're listening and we assure you nothing is changing with your feed right now. We promise to let you know when changes roll out broadly.
— Instagram (@instagram) March 28, 2016
And, rounding out the PR counter-attack for the fashion contingent, Instagram head of fashion partnerships Eva Chen posted a photo of her current manicure with a very soothing caption reassuring her followers that nothing much will be changing come Tuesday.
The thirst, nonetheless, has been admirable. Keep up the good work.
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