Snapchat feels the pain of the Jenner Effect

Earlier this month Snap wowed the world with some decent financial results, boosting shares by 25%, but negative feedback on its interface redesign and a damning tweet from Kylie Jenner have had the opposite effect.

This is a demonstration of how delicately balanced internet companies are and perhaps demonstrates why larger organizations are paranoid about doing anything too drastic when it comes to updates and upgrades. A good move would go relatively unnoticed, but a bad move can be disastrous.

The most vivid demonstration of this perilous journey for engagement, and maybe also the most amusing, can be seen below in a tweet from Kylie Jenner.

For those who don’t know who Kylie Jenner is, she is one of numerous celebrities who are famous for being famous and little else, who surged into the public eye as a result of reality TV. Jenner currently has 24.5 million followers on twitter, 59,000 of which decided to retweet the above message and while 311,000 liked it. Over the course of the last 24 hours, Snap’s share price declined more than 6%, wiping off more than $1 billion.

Of course, these 18 words declaring abandonment have not alone brought the misery to Snap. The company recently released an update to the app, which has proved incredibly unpopular, with many user complaining the features are more difficult to access or use.

At the time of writing, 1,234,420 have signed a petition on Change.org to try and convince the company to go back to the good old interface. While some might wonder what all the fuss is about, some have seemingly taken very personally. “The new Snapchat update sucks ass,” Sue-Anne van der Merwe wrote. “F*ck this update,” cried Taylor Richardson. “Snapchat is ASS and needs to change back,” pleaded Alahna Ramsdell.

How fortunes have changed. Three weeks ago the company released its latest financial performance with sales hitting $285.7 million, an increase of 72% year-on-year. Share price rocketed up 47%, but the redesign and the Jenner Effect have tumbled the price 15%. It is still a net gain, though the team will possibly be wanting to aim for a more consistent upwards trend. Rollercoaster rides are not fun for anyone involved.

This is the world of the internet though. An idea can blossom in a second and can crashing down even quicker. That said, despite the bad news at least one person is bounding around with a skip in his step though.

According to a SEC filing, over the course of 2017 Co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel was paid a salary of $98,078 while also being awarded stock to the value of $636,612,889. Even with the share price decline, Spiegel is hardly going to be digging at the back of the sofa for loose change.