Snapchat took the plunge last month in the US and rolled out a new upgrade to their app that was hated. A complete overhaul of the way the app shows your friends stories means that users across the world are getting seriously heated. Since January you now view your friends’ Stories on the Friends screen, accessed from swiping to the right. This means your chats are now also populated with people’s Stories. When you swipe to the left, where Stories used to be, there’s a big ol’ Discover page with more room for brands, companies and ‘professional content creators’ (is that a job?). It seems pretty obvious that Snapchat’s move has money on its mind because there’s more space than ever for paid placements, and users are disappointed at the decision.
Here’s what the Snapchat update is like:
— AG (@Junior_AG1) February 6, 2018
- The stories page is gone
- Stories page merged with the chat page so everyone’s story is on your chat page
- You can add your story to the map pic.twitter.com/YRBe7f3MNz
Snapchat’s official statement tries to paint a different picture of the shift. “Until now, social media has always mixed photos and videos from your friends with content from publishers and creators. While blurring the lines between professional content creators and your friends has been an interesting Internet experiment, it has also produced some strange side-effects (such as fake news) and made us feel like we have to perform for our friends rather than just express ourselves. Separating social from media has allowed us to build the best way to communicate with friends and the best way to watch great content, while addressing many of the problems that plague the Internet today.” Oh! Fake news, now I get it. I was having serious trouble figuring out which Snapchat’s were coming from Becky from English class and which were fresh from the Oval Office but this update has cleared things right up for me.
*new Snapchat update*
— Gabe Erwin (@gabe) February 7, 2018
Snapchat: “YAHH SOMETHING NEW!”
the world: pic.twitter.com/wQWLelfDLd
Fans are flocking to Twitter to vent and warn other users who might not have received the update yet. The update rolled out across the UK yesterday and though not everyone has had it yet, those that have are not happy. Some of the most popular Google searches for today have been ‘How to un-upgrade Snapchat’ and ‘How to reverse Snapchat update’, which is hilarious. The only real advice we have for you is – If your app hasn’t updated then for the love of God don’t allow it to. Switch off your auto-update function on your phone and put your fingers in your ears, because Snapchat want to gobble you up and force you to embrace the future.
