An Instagram Bug Took Away Memes in Explore, and Users Lost Their Minds

None of us is above a good meme, which is part of what makes them so great. It seems perfectly reasonable, then, that social media lost its collective mind after Instagram temporarily scrubbed users’ beloved personalized content section (i.e., the dank memes) during a recent update.

Instagram announced an update Tuesday that affected the app’s Explore section, where users can find content specifically catered to their interests. But users navigated to their app following the update to find the personalization element had, well, changed. Furious Instagram users fled to Twitter to bemoan the update and flag the lack of meme content — which, fair.

Refinery29 reported Friday that an Instagram spokesperson “says the changes users noticed on their feed were the result of a bug,” which affected the Explore section’s personalization features. We can all breathe a sigh of relief, however, as all appears to have since been fixed.

The update, the company said in a release Tuesday, would improve “ways to share in the moment on Stories, connect with friends over video and discover new interests on Explore.” The update specifically personalized content in Explore into topic channels, which now allow users to “browse across your interests and go deeper on any areas you’d like,” including memes.

Let this be a lesson to Instagram: Never mess with the memes.