@Instagram: Change it back

If you haven't noticed it already, Instagram is rolling out a new change to the app. For over a decade, Instagram has been known for their square photos and a profile page made out of evenly-shaped square photo tiles (or grids). They've changed their square photo formats now into rectangular shapes to match content like TikTok videos (on Instagram, known as "reels")... and it is certifiably F. U. G. L. Y. fuuuuuuuuugly!

Here's my plea and support for changing it back. While yes most changes to social media takes time to get used to, sometimes those changes just aren't accessible or worth doing. This is one of those changes. I think back to little changes over the years that seemed annoying but overall didn't change the entire app's purpose (when Facebook changed profiles into timelines, when Instagram changed videos to reels, or when Tumbr changed the top bar into a side bar). This change is not one of these. It changes the entire app purpose and experience.

Professional Reasons

From 2020 to 2021, I managed the Instagram account for @Bemidji_LCM and from 2022 to 2024, I managed the Instagram account for @NDSU_EGO. One of the challenges for managing multiple social media accounts is having to make each post work for the site it is being posted on. For example, I posted images that looked more like rectangular posters with text and hyperlinks for Facebook posts, I created links with short text and hashtags for Twitter (now regrettably called X, but that isn't my focus for this blog post), and for Instagram, I specifically created square images with text and hashtags. This can be a lot of work and it is why managing a social media account is indeed a real job. By changing the images into rectangular images on a profile, that hard work all goes to waste. Now, all that work has turned into ugly, inaccessible profiles.

Let's look at some examples below:

Here is a look at the @NDSU_EGO Instagram profile. There are multiple kinds of photos here. There's the standard photo where one takes a picture of others (the photo on the top left featuring a presentation on translingualism and the photo on the bottom left of women surrounding a homemade potluck dish). There's a selfie on the top right (me and my fellow co-president Mafruha working on our laptops). Lastly, there's text images (the top middle features an ad for the summer scholar seminar, the bottom middle is a preview of the writing program newsletter, and the bottom right is an instagram invitation to a potluck event).

Some of these images have been more negatively affected by the change from square to rectangle than others. The photos of the presentation and potluck gathering both cut out faces of people in the picture. The selfie still has both of our faces in it, though it does cut our faces off at the edge, looking a bit more strange than a typically well-posed selfie. The text images are greatly affected. Centered writing is now cut off at the edge. Bullet points are now off-screen, making the text harder to read. The potluck invite has one of the main words cut off while the art of the potluck table looks mainly unaffected. These photos were all taken, created, and edited to look good in the traditional Instagram grid layout. That work is all gone and now the account looks odd because of how the change affected all these photos.

Here is another section of the new @NDSU_EGO profile. All of these photos were taken during our biggest event of the year, the Red River Graduate Student Conference. While the group photo in the middle only seems to cut out a few people, the rest of the images look horrible now. Each photo was supposed to include a speaker and their presentation powerpoint. Each picture now cuts off one if not both of these important aspects. The photos on the bottom right have even cut out both of these aspects, making the photos both pointless and ugly. Most unfortunately, one of the photos that came out worse was a photo of the keynote's presentation. The most important photo of the event has now become an eyesore. I worked hard to take good pictures and make sure they were edited to include all important information. All that work has become pointless a mere 7 months after posting due to the new profile layout.

It is obvious just by looking at these profile screenshots that sharing the link to the profiles I managed on Instagram is no longer going to help me get paid social media management positions that I've been applying for. I'll have to make a more comprehensive portfolio of all the images I've created and edited for these accounts because the new profile layout no longer portrays my hard work and knowledge about creating content for specific media constraints. In addition to making the job hunt more difficult, this will no doubt negatively affect influencers on Instagram who make money from partnerships and art. While some companies might provide some leeway for creators like me because of this change on the app, it still leaves me feeling hollow that my work now just looks hideous. This update is a botched facelift. It's unknown if there is a way to change it if Instagram ignores the pleas of its users.

Personal Reasons

The same negative effects on my professional profiles affect my personal instagram account as well. As someone with an artistic eye, my profile is now ugly to me. My photos crop out faces, words, and memories. My account is something I no longer want to look at. If it weren't for a few friends who don't have other social media, I would probably delete it. Just because most users use the app for personal reasons rather than professional reasons like mine doesn't mean that their feelings are less valid. I expect the majority of users will not be pleased with the new layout just like I am. It really changes the whole experience of the app.

Overall, I want Instagram to change it back. I expect I am not the only person who is disappointed by this poor choice to change the layout that has been successful for over a decade. Here's a petition to change it if you're interested: https://chng.it/8KGmB8ndK7

#IDMD #IDisappointMyDad #Instagram #Meta #photography #photos #photosize #profile #socialmedia #art #ugly #visualrhetoric #rhetoric