Kylie Jenner has 24.5 million followers on Twitter. She has 20 million likes on Facebook. She has 104 million followers on Instagram. But out of all the social media platforms available, Kylie has historically preferred the millennial-dominated Snapchat above all the others. That preference has shifted recently after Snapchat made some widely unwelcome changes to their app. Yesterday, Kylie made her feelings about Snapchat's changes very public via Twitter. And with her tweet, she brought a company to its knees.
Here's what happened:
Yesterday Kylie sent the following Tweet out to her 24.5 million followers:
"sooo does anyone else not open Snapchat anmore? Or is it just me… ugh this is so sad."
Jenner, along with millions of other Snapchat users, is upset with the new Snapchat update. Apparently the updated Snapchat app makes people feel less connected to the celebrities who they have followed for years and generally made features more difficult to use. It also apparently pumps significantly more promoted posts into user's feeds. (As you may have realized by these uninformed cryptic descriptions, I've never used Snapchat so I don't totally understand what changed.)
But it's very clear that people HATE the updated app. In fact, over 1 million people signed a Change.org petition to get Snapchat to revert back to the prior version. CEO Evan Spiegel actually responded to the petition, but he did not acquiesce to any of the demands. He actually doubled down saying the updates are here to stay.
But maybe Evan should have listened to Kylie.
On the heels of Kylie's tweet, Snapchat's stock sank as much as much as 8%. With that drop, $1.5 billion worth of Snapchat market value was wiped out.
Ethan Miller/Getty Images
The 20 year old currently has a net worth of $50 million thanks largely to an extremely successful lip gloss and fragrance line. I wonder if she owns any Snapchat stock. Or better yet, I wonder if she is SHORT any Snapchat stock and if that would even be legal? I'm guessing not.
If I was Evan Spiegel, I'd drive on up to Calabasas and do whatever it takes to make Kylie happy. The life of his company very well may depend on it!
One final anecdote – Short sellers (people who bet a stock is going to fall) made $163 million thanks to Kylie's tweet. There's currently around $2 billion worth of short selling bets against Snap. If I was a short seller, I'd be sending Kylie some flowers today 🙂
