Imagine a young Swiftie in 2014, eager to attend a Taylor Swift concert and dress up. She's seeking 'vaporwave' outfit inspiration through prompts like "Taylor Swift aesthetics."
In the pre-Instagram era, applications and websites like We Heart It ruled the hearts of youngsters seeking to capture and curate visually aesthetic images and create collections of inspirational quotes on appealing photos.
Described as a home for inspiration, We Heart It was a sensation when it launched in 2008. But ask any young person today about the social media app, and they’ll probably have no idea what you’re talking about.
So, what happened to We Heart It, and where is it today?
This article explores the rise and fall of We Heart It, delving deep into the trials and tribulations that led to its demise.
What is We Heart It?
We Heart It, founded in 2008 by Fabio Giolito, is a social media platform dedicated to image and GIF sharing. Its main function is to enable users to discover, save, share, and organize visually appealing content.
The application serves as a digital scrapbook for users who can save images that resonate with their collections. It was first designed to attract a younger, female audience. Over time, it evolved into a go-to digital destination for visual inspiration for millennials.
We Heart It mainly attracts users interested in art, fashion, photography, and other visually aesthetic content but was especially popular among young adults and teenagers who used it as a source of inspiration and self-expression.
Users could share and organize their photos based on their aesthetic preferences or simply what inspired them, giving the young user base the freedom to express their creativity digitally.
We Heart It is often compared to Pinterest and Tumblr as social networks focused on visual and user-generated content. All three platforms allow users to discover, save, and share images and GIFs.
Designed to have a clean layout with minimal clutter, the social media platform was known for its simplicity and ease of use. Users could seamlessly navigate through the application’s different sections including the home feed, search, and collections.
The platform's focus on visual content meant that images and GIFs took center stage. The interface was designed to showcase these visuals effectively, with large, high-quality images and a grid-style layout.
How does We Heart It work?
We Heart It is simple to use, functioning on a straightforward ideology where users can “heart” images and GIFs (similar to liking an image or a reel on Instagram today) and place them into collections (similar to Pinterest today).
These collections can be private or public, allowing users to share their curated content with the digital community. For instance, users can curate a collection of personal manifestation goals such as a set of images of dream homes.
We Heart It also features a personalized feed, which suggests content based on the user's past interactions.
The rise of We Heart It
In 2011, We Heart It secured seed funding in California, becoming a funded business, sufficient to support the organization’s early growth and development.
According to the Wall Street Journal in 2013, the social media platform raised $8 million in Series A funding from White Oak (an advisory firm from a former Goldman exec) and IDG Ventures.
It quickly scaled up owing to organic growth mainly as users shared the platform with friends and family, leading to a snowball effect.
“The people who use We Heart It really use it: Members on average spend more than 16.5 minutes on the site at a time, and the average mobile app user opens the app more than 25 times per month.” Ranah Edelin, the former CEO of We Heart It told TechCrunch.
TechCrunch reported in 2013 that the website amassed an audience of 20 million monthly users, with more than 1 million new users registering every month.
Around the same time, We Heart was launched as a mobile application in both iOS and Android devices which likely played a key role in the platform’s growth, as it provided users with more convenient and easy access to the platform.
We Heart It tapped into the growing market of smartphone users by leveraging mobile application development and optimization. This helped to drive user engagement and increase accessibility.
It also garnered a strong, massive engaged community that likely led to the success. We Heart It encouraged its users to interact, participate, and create aesthetic content before Instagram became cool, helping drive user retention and loyalty. The aesthetics were what drew younger generations over using Facebook. Despite it all, what happened to We Heart It?
What happened to We Heart It?
The decline of We Heart It began after it was acquired by Super Basic LLC in 2021. Super Basic implemented major changes to that site that alienated users, including a focus on monetization through advertising and an increase in intrusive ads.
While We Heart It may still have a dedicated following, it is a shell of its former self. The changes implemented by the new ownership have irreparably damaged the platform's reputation and its ability to compete in the crowded social media space. This led to a less enjoyable user experience, and ultimately, We Heart It's downfall.
The social media app removed the photo upload feature from the We Heart It app in 2023, limiting users to downloading previously saved images through the website, leading to a phase-out of the formerly popular app.
Updates and changes to the platform’s content and features contributed to the gradual decline of We Heart It which led to mixed reactions from users. Many have expressed dissatisfaction with the direction We Heart It has taken, citing a decline in the quality of content and a less user-friendly interface.
New features introduced cluttered the application, making it difficult to navigate. The factors it was known for – simplicity and ease of use no longer applied to the platform, these deviations negatively impacted the user experience.
While other social media platforms evolved rapidly with the changing times, We Heart It failed to keep up with these changes optimally. Despite efforts to modernize the platform, the changes led often comprised user experience. In fact TechCrunch reported in 2017 of a data breach, stating that personal data may have been compromised.
We Heart It was alerted to a potential security breach involving 8 million accounts but the breach happened a few years prior to this information being shared. It involved email addresses, usernames, and encrypted passwords for We Heart It accounts created between 2008 and November 2013.
The company shared in a blog post that the passwords were encrypted, but not secure, “the encryption algorithms commonly used to encrypt passwords in 2013 are no longer secure due to advancements in computer hardware.”
Changes to We Heart It's recommendation algorithm may have also led to users seeing less relevant or interesting content, reducing their engagement and satisfaction with the platform.
Is We Heart It still active?
We Heart It is “technically” still active but the functionalities have completely changed. Users can no longer upload images, limiting access to formerly collected images and collections too. This means users can only download their past collections on the website.
When users questioned where the login option was located on the mobile application, We Heart It said that they had simplified the app experience so the app could be used without creating an account. “Accounts are no longer supported on We Heart It.”
Despite these changes, the platform continues to exist under the ownership of Super Basic, LLC. However, many users in the past year expressed disappointment over the recent alterations, indicating a decline in the platform's original appeal and usability.
Today, the We Heart It website is still accessible, however, it shows up with just one option for users – Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). The FAQs answer questions regarding users' accounts, iOS editing tool kit, Android editing tool kit, iOS Premium features, Android Premium features, and the best way to contact We Heart It.
