Oh, the challenges of viral fame. By 2019, VSCO’s photo-editing app had become a byword for a certain hyper-trendy style, as high school girls and tweens photographed themselves sporting casual gear such as Birkenstocks and scrunchies, then posted them using VSCO filters reminiscent of Kodak snapshots. Fast forward to 2023: the VSCO girl phenomenon has long faded and yearly downloads of the app have dropped by half from a peak of 45.9 million in 2019, according to data from Sensor Tower.
These shifting cultural sands have forced the 10-year-old startup behind the app to find other ways to keep its shutter-happy influencers sticking around—namely by introducing features that help them make money when they’re on the app, which it hasn’t previously offered.