Over the past two weeks, there has been a cry for help amongst Snapchat users everywhere. The official 2018 update did not just come with new features, but is joined by an entire new layout and everyone is the opposite of happy.
Many people, including myself did not manually install the update, but fell victim to the automatic updates feature. I can assure you I have since turned it off. Eventually however, the update made its way onto everyone’s phone whether automatic updates were turned off or not. There has been many ways floating around on Twitter of how to reinstall the old update with some successes, but I’ve also seen many tweets of people claiming it did not work for them, so I decided not to try.
I’m sure you all have the update by now, but if you’re lucky and do not, here is what it looks like (don’t mind the lines, just respecting the privacy of myself and my friends!)
This is essentially the new profile page. This was not so bothersome to me, as it looks fairly similar to the old one, and it is still easy to see where your story is located, and who watched it.
This however, is why the chaos got started
This is the new stories page. As you can see here, they are all stories that belong to public figures, such as Kim Kardashian. They are mixed in on the discovery page with all the content from other print publications. While I see what Snapchat was trying to accomplish here, I don’t think the layout is simple to understand. My first initial thought to seeing this page was, where are my friends stories??
When you go over to where your snaps are, you see everyone’s Bitmoji (which not gonna lie, I think is really cute) and this is where your friend’s stories are located. If you scroll down, you’ll see a blue circle highlighted next to their name, meaning they have a story to view. Or if someone you are currently snapping has a story, a blue circle will appear next to their name instead of their Bitmoji.
As you can see, it’s not so bad once you get the hang of it, but it’s really confusing to figure out where your friend’s stories are located, and it is much harder to watch the stories of friends and celebrities you like, when they are not all in the same place. I feel as though I have neglected watching stories since the new update, mainly because I can’t find them.
People have tweeted at Snapchat begging them to change the update if they get a certain amount of retweets. A petition to reverse the update hit 1 million signatures yesterday. A lot of people gave up on Snapchat and switched to Instagram stories. Snapchat is hoping that we’ll all like the app more once we adapt to the new layout, but from the looks of other social media platforms, people keep getting unhappier.
So what will you do? Deal with update, or stop using Snapchat all together? Even though the update is not my favorite, I’m going to try to get used to it. Although, keep your fingers crossed that Snapchat will answer our prayers and reverse this confusing update.