For the reason that pandemic, she has been constructing her profession as a photographer on the platform and attracted a whole bunch of hundreds of followers within the course of.
However just lately, her relationship with Instagram began to vary.
On Monday, Bruening shared a submit on the platform calling to "Make Instagram Instagram once more."
She advised CNN Enterprise that she was scrolling the app and felt pissed off by the dearth of content material she was seeing from accounts she followed within the wake of current updates prioritising really helpful posts and movies from its Reels product.
"I used to be seeing a submit from my good friend beneath three Reels and a really helpful submit that was six days outdated," she stated.
As she put it in her submit: "Cease attempting to be TikTok I simply wish to see cute pictures of my mates."
Her submit blew up. By Tuesday morning, it had greater than 1.7 million likes, thanks partially to shares by two of probably the most influential figures on the platform: Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner.
The well-known half-sisters are among the many most-followed accounts on Instagram, with 360 million and 326 million followers, respectively, and their opinions carry massive weight on the planet of social media.
A February 2018 tweet from Jenner criticising a Snapchat redesign was credited with wiping out $1.3 billion from the corporate's worth in every week.
The eye to Bruening's submit displays the rising backlash in opposition to current updates to the Instagram platform, which boast greater than 1 billion customers.
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To beat again the aggressive menace of TikTok — whose discovery algorithm is seen as its nice aggressive benefit — Instagram has began displaying customers a a lot larger proportion of really helpful content material from accounts that they do not comply with versus posts from their mates.
It has additionally prioritised video content material over the pictures it's recognized for.
The platform has been testing displaying full-screen posts, very like TikTok, as nicely.
The problem has arguably been brewing for years. Since 2020, the corporate has been experimenting with displaying customers extra "steered posts" of their feeds.
Really helpful content material and advertisements now make up a good portion of the Instagram feed, which frequently pigeonholes customers into sure content material classes (comparable to recipes or relationship recommendation) in a manner that generally appears to ignore whether or not they truly comply with such accounts.
The most recent dust-up round Instagram comes at a fragile time for mum or dad firm Meta.
The corporate is grappling with an growing old and stagnating consumer base on its flagship Fb platform, and Instagram is essentially seen as the most effective guess of its household of apps to take care of and develop the essential youthful viewers.
However Meta, like many older gamers within the social media world, is going through steep competitors from TikTok and is combating to achieve traction in its makes an attempt to repeat it.
Whereas Instagram customers are considerably extra prone to open the app day by day, TikTok customers spend a mean of about 45 extra minutes per day on the app than folks do on Instagram, in accordance with a report from analysis agency Sensor Tower for the second quarter of 2022.
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In a February name with Wall Road analysts, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that Instagram Reels "face a competitor in TikTok that could be a lot larger, so it should take some time to ... catch up there."
On the identical time, Meta is counting on earnings from Instagram and its different apps to assist fund its funding in constructing a future model of the web it calls the "metaverse."
And the corporate, which is about to report second quarter earnings on Wednesday, may even see a slowdown in spending on advertisements, its core enterprise, amid rising inflation and recession fears.
Meta's inventory fell practically three per cent on Tuesday after the rising backlash from the Kardashians and others.
"The issue for Meta is that nothing is nice proper now," stated D.A. Davidson analyst Tom Forte.
"Instagram is supposed to be the Meta asset to use, to deal with the youthful market, so it is pure to me that they are utilizing Instagram as the best way to answer the aggressive menace of TikTok."
Meta has run this playbook earlier than. In 2016, months earlier than Snapchat's mum or dad firm made its Wall Road debut, Instagram copied one of many messaging app's signature options, Tales.
Instagram, quickly reached extra customers with its model of the function than Snapchat did. However its efforts to repeat TikTok with Reels have arguably confirmed to be harder.
Many have identified that movies on Reels are sometimes simply outdated TikTok movies — generally shared weeks after they first went viral on TikTok, and infrequently with the TikTok emblem nonetheless hooked up.
In some instances, customers will share a nonetheless picture set to music as a Reel in an effort to rank larger on the platform.
Instagram, for its half, has been attempting to incentivise customers to make authentic Reels, with creator fund packages and by that includes them prominently in-feed.
The corporate is now additionally testing sharing all movies shorter than quarter-hour as Reels.
To make certain, Instagram just isn't the one platform prioritising video and really helpful content material because it seeks to maintain up with TikTok, which final 12 months surpassed 1 billion month-to-month energetic customers.
Twitter, Fb and different social media platforms have all additionally taken steps in that route.
"The perspective is that that is like cell, which means it is an evolutionary change in consumption on the web," Forte stated.
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"What selection does Fb have? It could be practically unattainable to purchase TikTok, which was the outdated playbook, so now they need to attempt to innovate."
For creators like Breuning who constructed their livelihoods on Instagram, the modifications really feel particularly painful, given its origin as a photograph app that catered to artists and photographers.
"It feels unsuitable to modify the algorithm on creators which have made a dwelling and contributed to the group, forcing them to vary their complete content material route and life-style to serve a brand new algorithm," Bruening wrote in a change.org petition calling on Instagram to "Cease attempting to be TikTok!" It has garnered greater than 150,000 signatures in 4 days.
Instagram didn't reply to a request for remark Tuesday.
Nonetheless, Instagram head Adam Mosseri addressed the criticism in a video submit on the platform Tuesday.
"We're experimenting with numerous totally different modifications to the app and so we're listening to loads of considerations from all of you," he stated, acknowledging complaints concerning the shift to video and the rise in really helpful content material.
"We'll proceed to assist pictures, they're a part of our heritage. ... That stated, I must be trustworthy: I do consider that increasingly more of Instagram goes to change into video over time."
Mosseri continued: "If you happen to have a look at what folks share on Instagram, that is shifting increasingly more to movies over time. If you happen to have a look at what folks like and eat and look at on Instagram, that is additionally shifting increasingly more to video over time, even when we're not altering something. So we'll need to lean into that shift whereas persevering with to assist pictures."
Mosseri additionally warned that the complete display video function check is "not but good" and has solely rolled out to a small share of customers. And he pointed to the choice Instagram launched earlier this 12 months for customers to toggle the platform to a chronological feed of posts from solely accounts they comply with.
However that rationalization wasn't sufficient to silence the criticisms.
Some customers sounded off within the feedback about feeling like they'd no selection however to begin making extra movies in the event that they needed the platform's algorithm to floor their content material.
Others steered that if the platform grew to become an excessive amount of like TikTok, they'd be inclined to easily choose one of many apps to make use of somewhat than each.
"Folks do VIDEOS as a result of now we have no attain on our pictures!!" trend creator Alina Tanasa (@fabmusealina) stated in a touch upon Mosseri's video.
"As a content material creator I want and need every and with pictures you chop all of the attain and also you promote solely movies. So it is not us, it is you which are altering every part and are afraid of TikTok."
Make-up influencer James Charles, who has practically 23 million Instagram followers, added in a remark: "I perceive that each enterprise has to evolve, compete, and please buyers, however Instagram is dropping the competitors and has misplaced its id alongside the best way. ... We're upset as a result of we CARE about this app and the communities we have been capable of create/be part of on right here, however I am genuinely anxious that if one thing does not change, there might be no group left."
If there is a silver lining for Instagram, nonetheless, it is that there are few different photo-first apps on the market, making it simpler to criticise Instagram than depart it, particularly for many who have constructed a life and a livelihood on it.
"Me personally," Breuning stated, "I like Instagram and I do not plan on leaving Instagram anytime quickly."