Move over, YouTube. Long snap stories are taking over the Wi-Fi, and storytelling hasn’t been so innovative since the first cave dweller wrote on the first cave wall. Young people are using their Snapchat to tell their stories and document their lives in the least permanent way possible.
“Like Twitter, this medium was clearly designed for lengthy storytelling,” said Anna Sequester, a Snapchat user who regularly posts snaps of herself talking about how much schoolwork she has to do, how tired she is and how fake her always-anonymous friends are.
“Sometimes, because of the 10 second video limit, my words will get cut off mid-sentence,” Sequester said. “But I can’t get the dog filter on YouTube, so I put up with it.”
Sequester said she didn’t know how many people watch her stories.
“I’m guessing a lot,” she said. “I get messages from people all the time saying, ‘Your stories are way too long’ and ‘nobody has time to watch all of this,’ but I just shake them off. You gotta shake off the haters.”
Reston Hayes says he doesn’t get it.
“Snapchat isn’t designed for stories hundreds of seconds long,” he said. “It’s like when people try to tell a story on Twitter using multiple tweets. Everyone’s annoyed, and no one can figure out what’s going on. Nobody on Snapchat wants to watch someone else tell a story about running into their ex at the grocery store while getting cut off at 10 second intervals.”
Hayes obviously isn’t tuned in to how the young people are using new media to tell personal stories.
“I’m 19,” Hayes said.
Hayes is obviously socially inept.
Francis Windly frequently posts snap stories upwards of 300 seconds featuring his dog.
“I used to just post one or two snaps of my dog to my story a day,” he said. “Then, I realized that since I love this dog so much, all my other friends must love watching him too.”
He says he feels like Snapchat has given his life a purpose.
“I’m leaving my mark on the world,” he explained. “I spend so much time filming, photographing and posting snaps to my story because I feel like it’s my legacy. It’s going to last.”
Belina Nolife is an avid Snapchat watcher. On average, she estimates that she watches about five hours worthhours’ worth of snap stories each day. Since she doesn’t work or attend school, she credits all her watch time to her extremely uneventful life.
“What’s great about Snapchat stories is that each day there’s something new,” she said. “I wake up wondering, what time stamp did my friends use on their obligatory start-of-work car selfies today? How many different people will my friends face-swap with today? How many different photos of one sunrise can my friends possibly get? Each day is a new experience.”
