The Rise and Fall of Snapchat

    In 2013, just two years after its release, Snapchat started to work towards its peak as a social media site. That same year, they added two brand new features: Snapchat stories and chats. Stories worked in the sense that anyone could post to it and it would stay uploaded for 24 hours. This allowed anyone they had friended on Snapchat to see what they had posted. Chats added a new casual undertone to the app. You could now essentially "text" your friends without having to send a picture with every conversation. In August of 2016, Instagram hopped on the bandwagon and added "Instagram stories" to their platform as well. Now, in 2021, Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, Twitter and countless other social media sites have a "Snapchat story" like feature. One of the biggest features that helped Snapchat climb as a platform was their invention of "geo-filters". This drew in millions and millions of new users of all different demographics. These filters included rainbows, dogs, distortions, and many more styles. Although these filter help to build up Snapchat's company for a short while, it also hurt them immensely.

     Snapchat is one of the greatest and horrific social media platforms of our generation. Its history trails all the way back to July 8th, 2011 when it was released to the public. Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy were juniors at Stanford University in California when they, with the help of some other Stanford University students, worked together to help create an app. Their overall vision was to create a social media platform that focused on the idea of quick messaging, quick conversation, and quick responses. This was the first social media platform of its kind to have a focus on these concepts. They wanted to create an environment that was reserved for the younger generation, with an age requirement of thirteen years old. The founders of Snapchat felt the need to break the perception that deleting content is a bad or suspicious act. They wanted to create the disappearing factor as a playful thing to help their system stand out and to add a fun, new and innovative concept into social media.

    With 360 million active monthly users and an average of 3 billion snapchats being sent out daily, Snapchat has taken Generation Z by storm. Snapchat was released at the most ideal time for Generation Z. Right as we were getting old enough/ responsible enough to use social media, a new platform rose. To help spread their company's impact, Snapchat is available in 37 different languages and is extremely easy to access. From the beginning of the app's history, they have made extremely smart and innovative decisions that have benefited them greatly and have helped them boost their business. Snapchat has consistently worked to prove that they want to be the number one contender in the social media market. Their hard work paid off, but only for a while.

    Snapchat body dysmorphia is one of the most common mental health and eating disorder terms of our generation. These filters that Snapchat decide to make for "innocent intent" is what is ruining so many young girls lives. Some of these geo-filters can smooth your skin, give you virtual lip filter/botox, and can distort your face and body into anything you wish. This feature is damaging females and teaching them that they need to enhance the way they look in order to feel or be "pretty". This false sense of reality is completely transforming peoples lives and it is horrific to see such a positive thing be twisted into a targeting system.