Owners of popular -based Instagram accounts, who recently saw their accounts deleted, are moving over to Reddit, and they aren’t exactly being greeted with open arms.
As we previously reported, over 30 major Instagram meme accounts were deleted by the platform in one fell swoop last week.
“These accounts were disabled following multiple violations of our policies, including attempted abuse of our internal processes,” a spokesperson told the Daily Dot via email. The alleged violations include things like selling and purchasing of usernames and attempting to fraudulently obtain others’ usernames.
The accounts were serious business for some users, who claimed they made big money through advertisements and sponsorships. Some of them took to Twitter to complain about the loss.
https://twitter.com/spicymp4/status/1154918331348115456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1154918331348115456&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailydot.com%2Funclick%2Finstagram-meme-page-purge%2F
But the people behind these accounts aren’t getting the sympathy they were hoping for. The majority of the responses were from users accusing the owners of these accounts of stealing content without crediting, much less paying, the original meme creators.
were you the original creator of the content you published 🤔?
— 𝙈𝙖𝙝𝙢𝙤𝙪𝙙 ⵣ ☪ (@mahmoud__95) July 27, 2019
Right lmao, like they're profiting off of other people's hard work only to turn around and cry when they have to face the consequences.
— Ya Boi 🕷️ (@ya_edon30) July 27, 2019
https://twitter.com/pikohnine/status/1155326436842057728
Honestly, I'm not surprised at all. I think it's a good thing too. None of them created their own content from as far as I remember
— Jackson Weimer (@jweimermedia) July 26, 2019
Some of the people who ran those meme accounts on Instagram are now moving over to Reddit, the very site from which they are accused of stealing. The majority of redditors are responding to the new users, who they refer to as “Instagram normies” or simply “normies,” not by complaining about content theft, but by making fun of them for not knowing how Reddit works. The redditors are using emojis and mocking double-tapping on posts, which on Instagram adds a like, but which only zooms in on the mobile version of Reddit.
There’s also a trend to confuse the newcomers by posting memes without captions.
Although a few redditors are breaking from the herd and welcoming the newcomers.
User Beautiful_Dirt wrote on the r/memes subreddit, “We need to stick together and welcome our new family members and give them a safe haven. A lot of us here use this sub, and other subs and mediums as a great way of relaxing and unwinding after a stressful day IRL, and we believe that everyone is entitled to enjoy this sub no matter who you are if you’re willing to follow the rules and love memes.”
It’s interesting that the general feeling coming from Reddit is more mild annoyance than actual anger. It’s possible that, given a little more time, the former Instagram users will be totally accepted on their newly adopted platform.
Of course, with no clear or easy way to make money posting on Reddit, they might not have much incentive to stick around.
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