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2021’s Most-Liked Instagram Posts Were From Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, And A Mermaid

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Ariana Grande The Kelly Clarkson Show 2021
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Musicians are major players in the realm of social media, and that remained true in 2021: A good chunk of the most-liked Instagram posts from the past year were by musicians or were music-related.

Ariana Grande has the top post among musicians and the second most-liked one overall, as a May 26 post featuring photos from her wedding with Dalton Gomez has over 26 million likes (according to Wikipedia, with data accurate as of December 23 and updated by Uproxx on December 27 for this post). It could be argued, though, that Billie Eilish actually fared better on the list: While the aforementioned Grande post is her only one in the top ten, Eilish has two posts on the list, the most among musicians. A post revealing her blonde hair ranks at No. 4 with 23 million likes and a photo from her Vogue photoshoot is No. 6 with 22.1 million likes.

Other musicians make cameos on the list as well. Kylie Jenner’s pregnancy announcement post from September, in which she tagged Travis Scott, is No. 3 with 24.6 million likes. Meanwhile, Iron Shore Mermaid, a professional mermaid performer, had a post in the top ten, a video set to The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber’s “Stay.”

Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodriguez had the honor of having the year’s top post, as their pregnancy announcement racked up over 32 million likes since it was shared in late October. Meanwhile, Lionel Messi had three posts in the top ten, making him the person with the most top-ten posts this year.

In terms of the people involved, this year’s list looks similar to the 2020 ranks, as Ronaldo, Messi, Grande, and Jenner all had some of last year’s top posts, too.

Check out the top ten list of the year’s most-liked Instagram posts below.

1. Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodriguez — pregnancy announcement (October 28; 32.3 million likes)
2. Ariana Grande — photos from her wedding with Dalton Gomez (May 26; 26.7 million likes)
3. Kylie Jenner — second pregnancy announcement (September 8; 24.6 million likes)
4. Billie Eilish — blonde hair reveal (March 17; 23 million likes)
5. Lionel Messi — First post after signing with Paris Saint-Germain F.C. (August 11; 22.1 million likes)
6. Billie Eilish — Vogue photoshoot (May 2; 22.1 million likes)
7. Lionel Messi — photo with the Copa América trophy (July 11; 22 million likes)
8. Lionel Messi — post announcing his departure from Barcelona during a press conference (August 8; 21.2 million likes)
9. Mermaid Montana — Iron Shore Mermaid (August 18; 20.2 million likes)
10. Tom Holland — birthday post for Zendaya (September 1; 19.6 million likes)

Jay-Z’s Music Is Now Available In Instagram Stories Thanks To Angie Martinez

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In recent years, music licensing issues have received greater spotlight due to the use of popular music on social content creation platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Twitch. Usually, it’s in the form of takedown requests, which can affect recorded streams and recently knocked out thousands of TikTok videos using a lofi song that sampled the Steven Universe theme song, but occasionally, users complain that they simply can’t find music from certain artists in the first place. Jay-Z was one of those artists until recently — and apparently, we have longtime radio personality/hip-hop journalist Angie Martinez to thank.

It would have been easy to miss the inclusion of Jay’s back catalog for use on Instagram Stories — and even less likely anyone would have know who to thank — without No Skips host Brandon “Jinx Jenkins, who posted a tweet notifying his followers about the change over the weekend. “fyi: we can use jigga’s music on instagram stories now,” he wrote. “thank @angiemartinez for that!” Martinez herself responded a few hours later, confirming her involvement. “haaa! not really sure how u knew that,” she marveled. “too many great ig stories to be had. you’re all welcome.”

Jay’s music has long been the subject of copyright snags thanks to his former ownership of Tidal. It was only relatively recently that Jay made his music available outside of Tidal, and he still keeps some content Tidal exclusive. However, it looks like even Jay won’t stand in the way of progress for too long, giving fans another avenue to enjoy — and discover, for those younger fans who weren’t around for his mid-2000s rap reign — his classic cuts.

T-Pain Held A Livestream Town Hall With Mark Zuckerberg To Talk About Improving Instagram’s DMs

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After T-Pain found out that he missed out on dozens of conversations with fellow celebrities due to his unawareness of Instagram’s requested DMs folder, he decided to hold a town hall on Instagram Live, inviting Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to discuss ways to improve the app’s DM feature (Facebook is the parent company of Instagram). T-Pain also brought on many of those whose DMs he missed, finally responding to them on such topics as the various collaborations they’ve worked on and Usher’s upcoming Vegas residency, which had its own viral moment recently.

Explaining why Instagram instituted the request folder, Zuckerberg told T-Pain, “The reason we have the ‘request feature’ is to prevent bullying or spam and other unwanted interactions — to be able to filter that out. Ideally, we should be able to figure out who the other people who might be sending you messages are who should get into that. The feature isn’t quite as advanced today as hopefully, it [will be] in the future.” Pain agreed that it’s a good idea for a multitude of reasons but pointed out how his recent trouble highlighted how sorting out potential spam also caused him to miss messages from famous friends, fans, collaborators, and potential business partners like Diplo, Fergie, Viola Davis, and ESPN.

Over the course of the town hall, T-Pain also teased collaborations with Rich The Kid and Kehlani, playing the latter in entirety and announcing its release this Friday.

You can watch the full livestream via the embedded Instagram post above.