Snapchat: A User’s Guide

Snapchat Episode V: The Bro-Tank Strikes Back

I understand your pain. No matter how many times you’re stuck trying to convince your puritanical family and friends, they just don’t get it. “Snapchat. That’s the one for sexting isn’t it?”

No, texting is the app for sexting. Snapchat is the app for liberating yourself from the chains and pains of recorded history and, from time to time, sharing your junk with strangers. Nothing to confuse here.

Even the most sext-averse among us, however, can catch the Snap. It’s as simple as doing it right.

RULES OF SNAPCHAT DONE RIGHT

The first rule of Snapchat is to respect the purpose of the app. No other form of communication provides a history catalog as fleeting, and at times frustrating, as Snapchat. While you may curse the creators for only providing you the names and times of what’s taken place before your eyes, you cannot, under any circumstances, take screenshots of what’s been sent to you for the potential purpose of blackmail. Joining Snapchat is automatic enrollment into a community which lives in a safezone of 3am mistakes.

Sure, if someone sends a well-captioned picture of a man on the El wearing nothing but a snuggie and denim socks, you should rightfully record this for safekeeping. The world needs to know about denim socks.

But, when in the course of human events is it necessary to capture your friend’s quadruple chin or your ex’s chiseled quads? Look at your life and look at your Snapchat before it’s gone. Be the bigger ex and let it disappear.

AS FOR WHAT YOU SHOULD BE SNAPOVATING

No one wants another captionless selfie from that one angle that works for you on a day you’ve convinced yourself you look fresh. Instead, exploit Snapchat’s most lucrative feature: deshaming the public selfie.

At a concert and want to prove to people how much fun you are? Shameless selfie of you together with your friends duck face and peace sign. Got a venti instead of a tall because the Starbucks worker doesn’t give a fuck? Shameless selfie of you and your free upgrade because they “thought you were cute.”

If this tutorial hasn’t convinced you that Snapchat is the best thing to happen to communication since writing things on stuff then you are hopelessly lost. You’ll surely regret it when we’re all sent to the inferno because gays are getting married and you leave behind selfies you took off of Snapchat. They will permeate the earth for eternity.

SnapChat: it takes the stress out of judgement day.

-Mr. Happyshaft