As much as I love and adore my lovely and lively friends on Snapchat, I have absolutely no interest in viewing their 147-second Snapchat stories. Last weekend, I was astonished to see a sorority sister with a whopping 172-second Snapchat story. Like... how?
I experienced such a frustration encountering this 172-second Snapchat story. Three-fourths of the story consisted of videos, while the other fourth consisted of blurry pictures with captions I did not understand and will most likely never understand. Do I take a solid minute and a half out of my day and click through the entire story to get it off the top of my feed, or do I protest the story all together and let it sit at the top of my feed for the next 24 hours, continuously instigating this frustration inside of me as to how someone could create this mess of a Snapchat story in the first place?
I can’t be the only one extremely frustrated by these tens of hundreds of seconds long Snapchat stories, right? I can’t be the only one frustrated by these Snapchat buffoons. That’s why I have created “The 45-Second Rule,” a rule restricting ALL Snapchat stories to 45 seconds.
I am not trying to contact Snapchat and make them actually restrict all stories to 45 seconds. Rather I am trying to instill an unspoken social standard. It does not matter what you are doing that night; it does not need to be captured and posted to your story for longer than 45 seconds.
Snapchat stories are meant to capture the one highlight of your night that you feel like sharing with everyone on your friends list. Keyword: highlight. According to dictionary.com, the word highlight is defined as "an important, conspicuous, memorable or enjoyable event, scene, part, etc." You could go skydiving and I promise you could limit the “highlight” of that to 45 seconds or less.
It’s really not that hard. Some tips are to actually enjoy what you are doing with your night rather than experiencing it through your iPhone’s camera lense. Instead of filming you and your friend eating Insomnia Cookies at 3 a.m., why don’t you just eat them? Why do you need to film that? Why do you feel the need to post it to your snapstory?
Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best example. There have been multiple occasions where Insomnia Cookies have, without a doubt, turned into the highlight of my night. So if that is the case, then don’t film the countless random, meaningless events that happen that night. No one needs to see your friend mumbling random crap on the sidewalk on the way to a frat house. No one knows what your guy friend is doing on the floor. Is he laughing? Is he passing out? Why is this funny? Why are there four 15-second-long videos of him? And why in the world is your picture of your Mac-n-Cheese pizza from Mesa 10 seconds long? Do you honestly think people stare at it for the full 10 seconds?
Snapchat users, please consider this social standard of minimizing your Snapchat stories to 45 seconds. I think your friends on Snapchat, your friends who you are supposed to be hanging out with that night, and your phone battery will really thank you!
