The application that turns five years young this September, has gone from a sexting stigma to the number one way we connect with our friends, family, and furthest acquaintances. Every morning, you can wake up and catch up on the last 24 hours of everyone in your phone book, all on that geofilter-humble-brag of extended euro trips and weekends in the Hamptons. Yet in a world where people are constantly within arms length of their personal smartphones, there’s no more appropriate way to document your day and point out the ridiculousness of the world surrounding you than your own public photo and video diary. Facebook and Twitter have become seemingly archaic as the updates of your network’s relationships, vacays, and beach days are so three days ago by the time that anyone gets around to posting the photos. Snapchat’s ability to satisfy our generation through instant gratification has sparked an addiction to the application that no one has any plans on shaking.
It’s also the most accessible, entertaining, and effortless distraction technology has laid upon humanity since Netflix allowed you to automatically continue to the next episode before the final credits of the previous one has stopped rolling. You can spend that train commute playing with the day’s new filters, only sending your crush the one that instantly airbrushes your face with some witty caption about the weather or early morning work grind. Thus, when anyone and everyone is buried in their phones to cope with the awkward silence of the strangers surrounding them, it is difficult to detect which ones are taking shameless selfies to send to their roommates or those reading The Skimm. When you’re bored, it’ll kill a good ten minutes to watch all the stories lined up on your phone, and even more time to go through the local and specialized stories, as well as hit up the Cosmo, BuzzFeed, and Vice content of the day. You can follow your favorite celebs as they take off in their private jets to make their next set in Las Vegas and watch the concert in ten-second delay from behind the DJ stand. Yet, as much of a necessary and sometimes unnecessary time waster that it is, the app can be fairly educational to a certain extent. I mean, if it was not for Snapchat, I would have had no idea that the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest even existed. Now I’m hooked – I’ve already booked my tickets for both me and my great Aunt’s Chihuahua for the 2017 fair.
The point is, Snapchat has evolved from a fad to an integral part of the millennial human experience. It has been a place where relationships both blossom and fizzle (throwback to the good old days when you could see your ex’s top 3 and confirm that he is in fact dating that girl who tagged him in that group photo last week). You can let someone know you’re thinking of them when you walk by the restaurant you got drinks at last month by snapping them a photo, or so easily shoot a snap message to your friend from college when you see he’s visiting in your neighborhood, much thanks to the geofilter phenomenon – a staple to every soul’s story when they arrive in a new city. We are a narcissistic, impatient generation that wants nothing more than to know the intimate details of the lives of people we rarely talk to in person. But honestly, that’s okay. While Snapchat may perpetuate the seemingly negative character traits of you, me, and our peers, it also provides us with a dynamic and instantaneous way to stay connected with the people who are far from us in distance or giggling over the barfing rainbow or bee voices in the next room. And even in our loneliest moments, it gives us some satisfaction that people care what we are doing in our every day lives. Albeit artificial or genuine, we are putting ourselves on display and people are watching. You have a platform for your voice (and the stellar chicken parm that you cooked for dinner) to be heard and observed immediately, and that is pretty mind-blowing. No matter what you may use this app for, Snapchat has unpacked its bags and is here to stay for far longer than just 10 seconds.
