“sooo does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore? Or is it just me… ugh this is so sad.” tweeted Kylie Jenner to express her disappointment and frustration with the new Snapchat update. Jenner isn’t the only person who feels this way; she speaks on behalf of, believe it or not, the majority of the Snapchat population. In fact, at least 1.2 million users have signed a petition to switch the Snapchat update back to the older version. Snapchat’s update could be the cause of major decline for the social media network.

Snapchat’s update consisted of many different major changes to the layout and operation of the app. Instead of Snapchat stories being on their own separate screens, accessed by swiping right, stories are on the same page as your chats with friends. This causes the layout to look very cluttered and crowded. There are three tabs on the screen with all of your snaps: All, Stories, and Groups. Each of these tabs are accessed by swiping right. Before, Snapchat users would swipe right on another person’s name to start chatting with them, so this new feature is causing a lot of confusion and frustration amongst the community.

As days went on after the update was released, more and more people were posting on social media about their hatred for the app now. On Twitter, these few tweets got a lot of attention:

“PLEASE @Snapchat I’m literally begging take back the update I’ve never felt so strongly about something pLEASE I CANT HANDLE IT” — Kahla (@KahlaJade)

“It’s been an amazing 5 year ride. @Snapchat I just hate your update I’m sorry” — Katie (@KTsimcik)

“okay so for me at least, snapchat has had a complete rework in an update and honestly it’s disgusting. it’s so weird to use and I don’t know why it’s been changed (this picture is the screen for chats and viewing stories? wtf)” — yin moongi [D-5] (@apwftbts)

Since a large majority of the Snapchat community was unhappy with this version of the app, Snapchat had a large decline in popularity, and they lost a lot of money. After Jenner tweeted her opinion about the update, Snapchat ended up losing roughly 1.3 billion dollars in their market value. They are slowly recovering from this major loss.

Even members of Snapchat here at St. Ed’s are very unhappy with this new Snapchat update. Social media specialist, Yssa Sto. Domingo, for the St. Edward Edge News Team gave her opinion about the update,  

“I didn’t like it at all at first, but it took a while to get used to. It’s harder to find the certain people that you are looking to talk to.”

Other active Snapchat users had a few words to say as well about their thoughts on the update:

Junior, Megan Ostrander said, “First glance, I did not like the update. I kept on writing reviews to Snapchat asking for the old update back. A few weeks went by, and I learned to tolerate it.”

Sophomore, Josh Johansen also added, “It definitely took some getting used to. I think people, including myself, just overreacted to it, not wanting or seeing a need for a change. I thought it was perfectly fine without the update. I don’t like how stories are on the same tab as snaps, but it isn’t unbearable. It hasn’t changed how much I am on Snapchat though.”

Rumors that Snapchat was going to change back to an older version were going around about a week ago. However, after the expected reversal date had passed, it was proven that these rumors were false. Everyone was allegedly let down after this news was proven false, but people will likely get used to the new update before long..

Now that a few weeks have passed since the update, the hatred for the update has begun to die down. As Josh, Yssa, and Megan said , they are learning  to tolerate it. The part that bothered people the most was the fact that Snapchat didn’t need a rework, and that people were perfectly happy with the old version. As a result of this, Snapchat has gotten a worse reputation, they have lost a lot of money, and they have lost a lot of loyal, active users.