Never underestimate the power of the Kardashian family.
Kylie Jenner, the youngest of the Kardashian-Jenner sisters and one of the most followed people on Snapchat, set Twitter abuzz on Wednesday afternoon when she posted, “sooo does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore? Or is it just me… ugh this is so sad.”
She quickly walked back her comments, following up with a tweet reading, “still love you tho snap … my first love.” But the damage was done.
Some 16 hours later, Snap stock began trading down sharply. As of midday, shares had dipped more than 8 percent for the day, at times pushing below the company’s $17 IPO price.
Jenner’s comments are part of a widespread backlash to Snapchat’s redesign, which has separated posts from friends and more professionally produced content into different experiences. Like many product changes, it has received criticism from Snapchat’s more devoted users, even prompting a Change.org petition that has received more than 1.2 million signatures.
But Jenner is perhaps the most high-profile user to speak out against the app.
At 20 years old, Jenner is part of the core Snapchat audience. While her sister Kim Kardashian West is known for her Instagram savvy, Jenner’s popularity on Snapchat during its early years helped not only boost her profile but also the Snapchat brand. She regularly posted public videos, called Stories, showing her hanging out with friends or promoting her cosmetics line. Last year, E! even launched a Snapchat companion show to her Life of Kylie series called Ask Kylie. (Jenner largely stopped posting to social media while she was pregnant with daughter Stormi.)
Her recent comments about Snapchat show the perils of alienating high-profile users. It’s one reason that Snapchat has made overtures to the creator community after it neglected relationships with those users for years.
Jenner’s Twitter complaints may have wiped out more than $1 billion of Snap’s market value, but her fans want her to take her concerns directly to CEO Evan Spiegel. Many of the people who commented on her Twitter post encouraged her to use her platform to implore Snapchat to do away with its latest update.
still love you tho snap … my first love
— Kylie Jenner (@KylieJenner) February 21, 2018
