Everyone’s talking about Snapchat, but not everyone really understands how it works. Isn’t it just a kids’ fad? That’s what they said about social media 10 years ago too.
What is Snapchat?
Snapchat is the new social phenomenon sweeping the younger crowd. Its success has reached the point where Facebook tried to buy it for $3 billion and still failed.
Through the app, he sends more than 400 million photos a day (more than on Facebook), and you only have to see the impact it has generated worldwide (and which is also occurring in Spain and Latin American countries, although to a lesser extent than in English-speaking countries) since it began its journey in September 2011.
Sounds interesting? It is.
How does it work?
At its core, Snapchat works similarly to an instant messaging app, allowing you to add contacts and send them messages in the form of photos or videos, either individually or in groups. The main difference is that you select the length of time the recipient can view the message (from 1 to 10 seconds) before it’s destroyed. Just like disappearing Snaps, Snapchat Planets reflect your closest friends in a private, visual orbit—making your social universe uniquely yours.
That is, you send your photo, edit it if you want (you can add a little text or draw on it), and send it to whomever you want, specifying the length of time they’ll be able to access it. The user is then notified that they have a message and can view it by long-pressing on the message for the time specified by the sender (if they release the press, they’ll no longer see it).
This makes it more difficult for the user to capture an image or photo of the screenshot itself.
What is it used for?
Snapchat is perhaps the fastest app for taking and sharing photos with your phone. Its advantage is that it allows you to share quickly, fleetingly, and imperfectly, since its temporal nature doesn’t impose the obsession with perfection found on other tools like Instagram. Brands are also using Snapchat Solar System for different purposes.
Fragments of everyday life
Believe it or not, Snapchat is primarily used to portray aspects of everyday life that aren’t relevant enough to remain permanently on the web . And perhaps we’re to blame for that: “Excuse me, can I take this picture for the 7th time? I have weird hair.”
We’re burdened with the pressure to present a perfect version of ourselves on social media and present exactly the image we want to communicate, which ultimately leaves a gap in our daily lives, which is often overlooked on more permanent social media. Memories with an expiration date.
Ugly photos
Not everything you do throughout the day belongs in a museum; we all have the right to do “ugly” things from time to time. That plate of food that turned out particularly bad, or a terrible sketch you made, a pimple you got… These are things that make us a little embarrassed and that we would never publish on a permanent, public network, but we don’t mind sharing them if we choose with whom and if they are ephemeral.
Sexting
Let’s not kid ourselves, an app that promises to delete your photos several seconds later and only share them with the people you want is just begging for naked photos of yourself in front of a mirror. That’s not its only use, or even its primary purpose, but hey, it’s what most catches our attention. Especially considering the platform’s core user base is between 13 and 23 years old.
Chat
That’s right, another app with built-in chat, just in case Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Line, and WhatsApp weren’t enough. The ability to send text messages at no additional cost has revolutionized the world of communications in recent years. Snapchat joins this revolution, so that in addition to sending images, you can also communicate via chat.
Secrets
We’ve already seen cases where some idiot is arrested for uploading a profile picture of an illegal act. With Snapchat, that risk would be reduced if you wanted to share photos or videos of a criminal act. For a younger audience, this includes practical jokes, parties, and the use of alcohol and soft drugs. Be careful, because there are also some complaints of bullying.
Why is it so popular?
It’s very difficult to narrow down the list of factors that contribute to Snapchat’s success, but there are some trends that may provide a clue:
Because your parents are on Facebook
And, honestly, a social network where your mom can share your statuses isn’t exactly cool. Young people will always have the need to differentiate themselves, assert themselves, and rebel—and this is a good thing—and it’s hard for them to do so while sharing space, practices, and uses with their parents and grandparents.
Visual web phenomenon
The visual web is a growing phenomenon. Young audiences like visuals, and the acquisitions of Instagram ($1 billion) and Tumblr ($1.1 billion) demonstrate this trend, which is confirmed by the huge success of Vine and video for Instagram. Combining the visual phenomenon with a purely messaging tool is interesting: we’ve always said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but with Snapchat, we’ve come to ignore words for communication.
Carpe diem
My grandparents have boxes and boxes of memories filled with photographs, letters, and artifacts from times gone by. My parents have kept some of their own memories, but the truth is, we lose quite a few with every move. I haven’t paid to print a photo in years , and although I document what I do almost compulsively (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.), the truth is that every time I’ve changed computers, I’ve lost a large part of my memories.
Perhaps this tendency to document everything without preserving anything is becoming more pronounced among younger generations. This digital “Carpe diem” is increasing, and it leads us not only to accept that the moment is fleeting, but also that the memories we have of them (photos, texts, videos) are also something to be enjoyed in the moment and not held onto.
Privacy
It’s been a tough year for internet privacy. Many of us held the illusion that the privacy options on Facebook and other social media platforms protected us from prying eyes. Now, with the NSA, hackers, and half the world’s governments accessing your data every morning before breakfast, privacy concerns have become a very serious issue.
The success of Telegram, the Tor network, or the attempts by some governments to limit or control their citizens’ Internet use are some of the most important trends encompassed in this phenomenon.
Fashion and the Internet
I must confess, I was a latecomer to the social media trend. I didn’t have Myspace, I didn’t have a Fotolog, and I didn’t blog until 40defiebre. That’s why my first impression when I see apps popping up all of a sudden (Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat) is to dismiss them as a new-generation fad that doesn’t concern me.
The problem is that if you work on the Internet—or if not, given how technologically advanced our society is becoming—it’s important to understand that the new generations are generally better able than you are to assess which emerging trends will be successful and which won’t. Anyone who dismissed Myspace or Fotolog 10 years ago as something ephemeral, because no one in their circle participated in these activities, failed miserably in recognizing one of the most important technological and social trends of this century so far.
I’m not defending Snapchat per se, I think it’s an interesting app, but the truth is that I hardly have any contacts who use the app and I’ve barely sent/received a couple of photos, and because of that I haven’t been able to get the most out of it, but I think it’s clear that youthful rebellion and nonconformity are the ideal breeding ground for identifying new social and consumer trends , and therefore we should always be willing to learn from the new digital natives, and what they have to say about their privacy, the durability of their memories and that search for perfection that we pursue on the Internet.
