The snap change is a relatively new phenomenon that has seen rapid growth and adoption over the past decade. While the origins of the snap change are a bit murky, there are a few key individuals and companies that seem to have played an instrumental role in its creation and popularization.
The Origins of Snapchat and Ephemeral Messaging
Many credit Snapchat as being one of the first and most influential platforms to really push the idea of ephemeral messaging into the mainstream. Snapchat was created in 2011 by Evan Spiegel, Reggie Brown, and Bobby Murphy, three Stanford University students at the time.
The app was originally called “Picaboo” and allowed users to send photos that would self-destruct after being viewed. The impermanent nature of these messages was meant to encourage a more fun, authentic, and spontaneous style of photo sharing.
Within months of launch, Snapchat saw rapid growth, especially among younger demographics. By the end of 2012, Snapchat users were sending over 50 million snaps per day.
Clearly, Snapchat had tapped into a desire for more casual, in-the-moment communication – especially for sharing everyday moments that users didn’t necessarily want to have a permanent digital record of.
Facebook and Instagram Adopt Stories
Seeing the success of Snapchat’s ephemeral messaging, other major platforms like Instagram and Facebook soon moved to incorporate similar features into their own products.
In 2016, Instagram launched Instagram Stories, which lets users post photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours. WhatsApp Status, launched in 2017, offered a similar Stories-like feature.
The biggest move came in early 2018 when Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would be adding Stories across all its platforms – Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. This introduced the Stories format to over 2.5 billion users instantly.
The adoption of Stories and impermanent messaging by the two biggest social media platforms meant that short-lived content was now completely mainstream.
The Rise of “Snapchat Dysmorphia”
Around this time, plastic surgeons and psychologists started noticing a trend that has been coined “Snapchat dysmorphia.” Patients, especially younger ones, would come in asking to look more like the Snapchat-filtered version of themselves.
The idea was that they wanted to undergo cosmetic procedures like fillers, Botox, or even surgery to resemble their own digitally enhanced selfies. Essentially, they had become dissatisfied with their real self because it didn’t match the perfected image they shared online.
While obviously a concerning trend psychologically, this further demonstrates how normalized fleeting, filtered content had become, and the pressure and insecurity it could cause.
TikTok Solidifies the Snap Aesthetic
When TikTok exploded onto the scene in 2018, it essentially combined the ephemeral aspect of Stories and the filters of Snapchat into one ultra-popular app.
TikTok took the selfie-style videos and applied Snapchat-esque filters, effects, and editing capabilities. And rather than staying up for 24 hours like Instagram Stories, TikTok videos could be as short as 3 seconds.
This amped-up, instant nature of TikTok propelled the snap aesthetic into overdrive. Quick cuts, viral memes, lip-syncing, and irreverent humor became hallmarks of the platform.
TikTok now has over 1 billion monthly active users – a testament to the immense popularity of bite-sized video content.
BeReal and Authenticity
While social media like TikTok thrives on quick edits, filters, and carefully curated content, there has been some backlash to this manufactured perfection recently. Apps like BeReal have emerged that aim to provide a more authentic look into someone’s day-to-day life.
On BeReal, users get a daily prompt to take and share a quick, unedited photo of whatever they’re doing. The idea is to share moments spontaneously, without the filtering and glossy production value of other social networks.
While popular with Gen Z, it remains to be seen whether BeReal can compete with more established players or if its model is sustainable long-term. But its premise speaks to a desire for social media that feels more raw, real and uncomplicated.
The Lasting Impact
While the origins of the snap aesthetic can be traced back over the past decade or so, its effects on society are still unfolding. Some potential impacts include:
- Attention spans shrinking, especially among young people immersed in micro-content
- Pressure to present heavily curated or exaggerated versions of oneself online
- Decreased patience for consuming longer-form, in-depth material
- Potential impacts on memory and retention from constant micro-doses of content
At the same time, the snap model has enabled more people to be creators and allowed for boundary-pushing concepts to gain viral traction quickly. Only time will tell how this format evolves and whether a counter-trend back towards depth and nuance emerges.
Conclusion
In summary, Snapchat and its revolutionary ephemeral messaging seem to have kicked off the snap change, which was then accelerated by Instagram, TikTok and others. This shift towards micro-content has shaped internet culture and changed how social media is produced and consumed. While the long-term impacts are still developing, the snap aesthetic will likely be an influential digital era whose legacy is felt for decades to come.