James Charles Went Off On Instagram In A Passionate Rant About The Latest Update

On Thursday, Nov. 12, Instagram released a new layout to its app, and there are some mixed reviews so far. So many people are not here for it, including makeup guru James Charles. If you're not a fan of the changes, too, James Charles' rant about Instagram's update will get you fired up.

The changes to Instagram's layout include a pretty extensive home screen redesign with two tabs on the bottom menu for Instagram Reels and Instagram Shop. Both the notifications tab and the post creation button are now located in the upper-right corner, next to the direct message button. The create a post option (aka the Instagram Camera) used to be the middle button in the menu on the bottom of the screen. Now the bottom menu consists of the homepage, the Explore tab, the Reels tab, the Shop tab, and your profile tab.

Instagram's official blog post on Nov. 12 called the change its biggest alteration of the layout in “quite a while." The only problem is, it doesn't seem like very many people like it. Because the Instagram Camera and notifications section (the heart button) are at the top of the home page, you can't access them while you're in a different tab, whereas before, you could easily swap between the options using the bottom menu bar.

After the redesign went live, Charles posted a rant on his Instagram Story on Nov. 12, speaking about the changes. He started by giving anyone who hasn't installed the update a tip. "I'll give you a nice little heads up: don't. Save yourself the time because as usual, it is absolute trash," he said. "They moved everything around and it makes it very, very clear where their priorities lie, and that is making money and only making money," Charles said. "Nobody f*cking asked for Reels, we have TikTok for a reason."

Following the update, on Friday, Nov. 13, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, shared a video message on his Twitter and Instagram accounts. Mosseri didn't mention Charles by name, but the video appeared to be in response to negative feedback regarding the update. Off the bat, he acknowledged the less than glowing reviews, saying, "We know major changes to the app are going to be met with some skepticism." Mosseri quickly followed up with the beginning of his defense of changes, stating: "The biggest threat that we face is that the world changes around us, and what we do becomes less relevant."

Mosseri acknowledged TikTok as a short-form video trendsetter, and he shared that "video and commerce are important parts of Instagram, and they have been for years," and said the new Reels and Shop tabs were an act of Instagram leaning into changes to help "entertaining video" and shopping thrive on the platform. He concluded the video by asking users to "approach this change with an open mind."

Charles didn't seem to buy Mosseri's explanation, and he wrote a lengthy response to his Nov. 13 video, saying the update "may be the worst one yet."

Other users echoed Charles' frustrations about the update:

Mosseri also asked users to give Instagram time "to work on these experiences and make them better." Time will tell whether IG users will come around to Mosseri's reasoning for the update.

Editor's Note: This post has been updated to include Adam Mosseri's response to some of the negative reviews of the Nov. 12 update.