title: How can I get a user's media from Instagram without authenticating as a user?
body: <p>I'm trying to put a user's recent Instagram media on a sidebar. I'm trying to use the Instagram API to fetch the media.</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://instagram.com/developer/endpoints/users/" rel="noreferrer">http://instagram.com/developer/endpoints/users/</a></p>
  
  <p>The documentation says to GET <code>https://api.instagram.com/v1/users/&lt;user-id&gt;/media/recent/</code>, but it says to pass an OAuth access token. An access token represents the authorization to act on behalf of a user. I don't want users to log into Instagram to see this on the sidebar. They shouldn't even need to have an Instagram account.</p>
  
  <p>For instance, I can go to <a href="http://instagram.com/thebrainscoop" rel="noreferrer">http://instagram.com/thebrainscoop</a> without being logged into Instagram and see photos. I want to do that through the API.</p>
  
  <p>In the Instagram API, non-user-authenticated requests pass a <code>client_id</code> instead of an <code>access_token</code>. If I try that, though, I get:</p>
  
  <pre><code>{
    "meta":{
      "error_type":"OAuthParameterException",
      "code":400,
      "error_message":"\"access_token\" URL parameter missing. This OAuth request requires an \"access_token\" URL parameter."
    }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>So, is this not possible? Is there no way to fetch a user's latest (public) media without asking a user to log into an Instagram account through OAuth first?</p>