In December, WNYC named Taylor Lorenz one of the 16 best New Yorkers to follow on Instagram.
The recognition was well deserved. Taylor takes beautiful photos that really capture NYC. Like this one.
Lorenz, Head of Social Media at The Daily Mail (and disclosure, close friend of the author of this post), announced she deleted the app off her phone today:
People were not happy to hear it.
Lorenz explained in various tweets that it had to do with the now-defunct broad Explorer tab, which Instagram recently swapped out for a more tight-knit community feel, showing you photos your friends and friends of friends have been liking.
Business Insider reached out to Lorenz for the full explanation on why Instagram's changes forced Lorenz to clear it off her phone.
Here was what she said:
The Explore tab was basically what I loved about Instagram the most. It used to be called the "Popular page" and when Instagram was really small, you actually had a chance of getting [your photos featured] on it. Some of my favorite NYC Instagrammers had pics featured on it in the beginning, and it's basically how I found a whole community on Instagram.
As the platform began to grow, the Popular page turned into the Explore tab. And it was less about local Instagram people and more about celebrities, Russian socialites, Australian YouTubers, landscape photographers who always went crazy with editing, but it was still my primary tool to discover new people and photos.
When I would go on Instagram, I'd spend 20% of my time scrolling through my own feed of people I follow and 80% trolling the Explorer tab, finding cool photos, and awesome communities, like Cheerlebrities.
With the new update, 90% of my Explorer tab is just photos my friends have liked or commented on. It's like, they're giving you a photo from a friend of a friend that your other friend has engaged with.
It feels like the app has closed in on itself and I can't find all the random cool people/photos that I could there before. It seemed like Instagram was creating the communities for you instead of letting you find your own.
It's pointless to me. I checked out the Explorer tab for the last few weeks, and there are fewer and fewer cool things, and I got bored.
When we asked Lorenz if she thought she'd ever add the app back onto her phone, she told us she'd consider it if they developed a better discovery tool.
"I like what Vine has done in terms of categories," she added, speaking to Twitter's 6-second video platform, "I like Vine a lot."