Instagram was not kidding around when they said they were going to remove spammy accounts, thereby possibly changing the number of followers you have.
For celebrities, that change meant losing not thousands, but millions of fake followers in what is being called the “Instagram Purge” or “Instagram Rapture” (the horror!). Who was the most affected by the Great Instagram Purge of 2014?
That would be bad boy/”Boyfriend” singer and peroxide blondie Justin Bieber, who went from 23.8 million followers to 20.3 million (losing a total of 3.5 million). That’s about a 15% loss. Sorry Justin, you are no longer the most followed person on Instagram.
Kim Kardashian now ranks #1 as Instagram’s most followed person with 22.2 million, though she too lost 1.3 million followers.
Rihanna lost 1.1 million followers, and now has a total of 13.2 million (but still unofficially has the best Instagram account out there).
Ariana Grande lost 1.5 million, now standing at 20.2 million followers.
Selena Gomez also lost 1.1 million followers, resulting in a total of 18.4 million.
The New York Times reports that Instagram lost a total of 18.9 million fake users in the purge!
As an Instagram user whose follower count will probably always dwindle in the low hundreds, having a couple million followers (let alone up to 20 million) is actually quite mind boggling, so dry your tears Justin and get over it. Those spambots didn’t show you any love anyways.
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