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Introducing the new Snapchat

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Re: Introducing the new Snapchat

#191

Post by ImSkeptical »

iambateman wrote: post #48

Evan of Snapchat talks about “performing for your friends” as a strange “side effect” of Snapchat. But the instinct to perform is native to the Snapchat medium. I think this is a problem. I went to a concert a few weeks ago. The people beside me would stand still for 10 minutes and then someone would pull out Snapchat. The whole group would turn around, flash a smile and start dancing for the camera. 9 seconds later,…

I disagree on two points.

First, people shouldn't love you for who you are. That assumption is in popular culture but it's really pernicious if you examine it. I don't love my mother because she's my mother. I love my mother because she's nice to me, she cares about me, she sacrificed for me, she wants me to do well, etc. If my mother acted like a robot, or worse, was abusive or exploitative, I wouldn't love her. That's true for everyone I do love, and I think it should be true of all love (possible exception for one's own children). If you expect people to love you regardless of what you do or how you act, that's demanding a lot from people for no reason.

Second, consider the group of people at the concert. Going to a concert is fun, even if you're just kind of standing around watching. The problem is, when taking a photo, you can't convey visually the fun of being there - so you exaggerate the visual aspect, you look happy, so you can take a picture that represents what you're actually experiencing. I grant that it could be the case that people are cynically trying to create a fantasy life for Snapchat to seem popular or whatever, but my experience with such things is just that you're trying to convey your experience with images. Going to this concert is fun, so look fun so we can snap shot it!

Over Thanksgiving I took pictures of my mother, my sister, and my sister's daughter doing the same thing. On the one hand, two of the pictures were staged (I asked two of them to come here and do this so I could take their picture). On the other hand, it captured the similarity that I could see between the three of them. The picture is authentic in the same way that the Snapchat picture is - it had to be created artificially to capture something authentic.

Re: Introducing the new Snapchat

#192

Post by Simon_says »

vernie wrote: post #183
Simon_says wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best advice is to not put anything into electronic form that you wouldn't want your everyone you know (along with prosecuting attorneys) to read about in detail in the newspaper. Facebook may promise something is private, but all it takes is the smallest software bug and their promises are ashes.

Fortunately nobody reads the newspaper anymore.

Is that the point of what I said?

Re: Introducing the new Snapchat

#193

Post by sincerely »

_kyran wrote: post #190
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived in many major cities around the world (and have done enough partying to confidently say) I haven't seen one nightclub that forbids taking photos. That would be stupid. I've seen a couple of bars where they ban it, but not in nightclubs, especially high end ones. It's too hectic to "ban" something there, and the more exclusive the place is, the more likely the visitors want to instagram their visits, the be…

Got to Berlin. Just about every club bans all forms of photography and many put a sticker on your phone's cameras when entering.

a techno club in berlin is a very different experience than a top 40 club in a major north american city and i think a fair part of this conversation is people talking over each other because the word "club" isn't specific enough.

Re: Introducing the new Snapchat

#194

Post by tylerhou »

ImSkeptical wrote: post #191
iambateman wrote: post #48

Evan of Snapchat talks about “performing for your friends” as a strange “side effect” of Snapchat. But the instinct to perform is native to the Snapchat medium. I think this is a problem. I went to a concert a few weeks ago. The people beside me would stand still for 10 minutes and then someone would pull out Snapchat. The whole group would turn around, flash a smile and start dancing for the camera. 9 seconds later,…

I disagree on two points. First, people shouldn't love you for who you are. That assumption is in popular culture but it's really pernicious if you examine it. I don't love my mother because she's my mother. I love my mother because she's nice to me, she cares about me, she sacrificed for me, she wants me to do well, etc. If my mother acted like a robot, or worse, was abusive or exploitative, I wouldn't love her. Tha…

> First, people shouldn't love you for who you are. That assumption is in popular culture but it's really pernicious if you examine it.

You're making a mostly semantical argument. When you say that "you don't love your mother because she's your mother", you're saying that you don't love your mother strictly based on the fact that she was the woman who bore you (`with respect to her identity`). You then say that you love your mother because she acts `how she acts`.

In my experience, when people say they want to be loved for who they are, they mean that they don't want to have to act differently than how they would naturally act in order to be liked or popular. In essence, `who someone is` is commonly interpreted to be a superset of `how someone acts` in union with other sets (like `who someone is with respect to their identity`). Thus most people would understand "be who you are" not only to mean "be who you are strictly `with respect to your identity`" but also "be who you are with respect to `how you act`". You're missing the latter in the definition in of who your mother is.

Your second point is valid. In my experience it is difficult to maintain physically a peak level of excitement for a whole event.

Re: Introducing the new Snapchat

#195

Post by tedmiston »

thebaer wrote: post #134
iambateman wrote: post #48

Evan of Snapchat talks about “performing for your friends” as a strange “side effect” of Snapchat. But the instinct to perform is native to the Snapchat medium. I think this is a problem. I went to a concert a few weeks ago. The people beside me would stand still for 10 minutes and then someone would pull out Snapchat. The whole group would turn around, flash a smile and start dancing for the camera. 9 seconds later,…

> How do I have an identity when I consistently invite other people - often strangers - to affirm my experiences? This sums it up so perfectly. It precisely explains what I've always failed to when people ask, "why didn't you take pictures of that? or share them on Facebook?" I was just overseas for several weeks and I was able to fully absorb the entire experience because I wasn't worried about what anyone else in t…

The like / +1 is a useful signal though. What if it were visible in the UI but didn't trigger notifications or alerts?

Re: Introducing the new Snapchat

#196

Post by barrkel »

iambateman wrote: post #48

Evan of Snapchat talks about “performing for your friends” as a strange “side effect” of Snapchat. But the instinct to perform is native to the Snapchat medium. I think this is a problem. I went to a concert a few weeks ago. The people beside me would stand still for 10 minutes and then someone would pull out Snapchat. The whole group would turn around, flash a smile and start dancing for the camera. 9 seconds later,…

I think there isn't as much to "you" as you think there is. What you think of as your identity in any given context is largely determined by previous interactions in that context. The person you are when you're with your parents, vs with your childhood friends, vs college friends, vs old work colleagues - these are all different versions of you, and they're all authentic, despite being different - and yes, they also trigger the performative.

It's most obvious when you listen to someone phone home, where people from home have a different accent from where they live. Their accent will start switching back. They'll start reacting to social and conversational cues in remembered ways, rather than current ways. A facet of identity is keyed to its culture. (I think this is why FB is so disturbing; I stopped using it in 2010 or so. It just creates context cross-talk.)

I agree with you on the distorting effects of the camera, causing people to exaggerate to communicate a specific story. I don't see it so much as misrepresentation, though. People have sent misleading postcards of holidays to friends and relatives for decades, before photographing everything was feasible, never mind video snippets. It's more about constructing a social object that acts as a kind of structural element for a narrative one wants to write in the shared cultural space of the viewers. And Snap certainly encourages it, probably to excess.

On my first significant holiday abroad, I didn't take any photos, because I wanted to stay in the moment, and not be concerned about creating narratives. The experience stays within me as a series of scenes without order, almost like a remembered dream. I could say that it's part of me, my identity. But since I can't share it with anyone, it's impoverished. Shared experiences are bonding in a way that unshared experiences aren't. The shared narrative creates a shared mini-culture, where members belong. Being through a tough spot with someone can be the seed of a deep friendship, and the shared narrative is a big part of why. Whether the narrative is authentic or not isn't actually the point.

Re: Introducing the new Snapchat

#197

Post by tedmiston »

sethhochberg wrote: post #152
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised that you've never seen this behavior. Just go to the nearest nightclub on the weekends and find a group that's doing a bachelorette party or birthday party or something. I see it ALL the time.

Then, promptly find that one nightclub in your city that forbids photos and video... you hopefully have one, and its probably a better time. :)

Is that a European thing? Never heard of it in the US.

Re: Introducing the new Snapchat

#198

Post by tedmiston »

hmhrex wrote: post #87
iambateman wrote: post #48

Evan of Snapchat talks about “performing for your friends” as a strange “side effect” of Snapchat. But the instinct to perform is native to the Snapchat medium. I think this is a problem. I went to a concert a few weeks ago. The people beside me would stand still for 10 minutes and then someone would pull out Snapchat. The whole group would turn around, flash a smile and start dancing for the camera. 9 seconds later,…

This is a great way of explaining this. I've been without social media for about 1.5 months now. I've noticed the urge to capture an experience for social a few times, even though I've spoken against it in the past. I'm actually happier without it.

This is why I keep a (digital) journal.

Preserving a memory there in a few sentences or a quick photo that I just save for myself fulfills the desire for me.

Re: Introducing the new Snapchat

#199

Post by noobermin »

ImSkeptical wrote: post #191
iambateman wrote: post #48

Evan of Snapchat talks about “performing for your friends” as a strange “side effect” of Snapchat. But the instinct to perform is native to the Snapchat medium. I think this is a problem. I went to a concert a few weeks ago. The people beside me would stand still for 10 minutes and then someone would pull out Snapchat. The whole group would turn around, flash a smile and start dancing for the camera. 9 seconds later,…

I disagree on two points. First, people shouldn't love you for who you are. That assumption is in popular culture but it's really pernicious if you examine it. I don't love my mother because she's my mother. I love my mother because she's nice to me, she cares about me, she sacrificed for me, she wants me to do well, etc. If my mother acted like a robot, or worse, was abusive or exploitative, I wouldn't love her. Tha…

Another commenter replied to your first point and I hold their sentiment.

Regarding your second point, there is a spectrum here between "recreating authentic experience" and closer to "making something that isn't real" for likes. An extreme example is that I live in a hipster neighborhood with a bunch of European inspired architecture (in the midwestern USA). I once saw two people hold up their small puppy they had on a leash up to autumn leaves in a plant in order to take a picture, around shoulder level with outstretched arms. The dog was clearly in distress, but they continued for one or two times while the dog was whimpering and trying to get down.

The dog was not "experiencing the autumn leaves." Instead, I'm guessing this was closer to "I've seen these sorts of posts in ig, and it's popular, so I'm going to try to recreate it for likes." Why else would someone do that?

So that's an extreme towards GP's point while you seem to be on a spectrum towards another area where it's more like amplification over manufacture.

Re: Introducing the new Snapchat

#200

Post by noobermin »

tedmiston wrote: post #195
thebaer wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do I have an identity when I consistently invite other people - often strangers - to affirm my experiences? This sums it up so perfectly. It precisely explains what I've always failed to when people ask, "why didn't you take pictures of that? or share them on Facebook?" I was just overseas for several weeks and I was able to fully absorb the entire experience because I wasn't worried about what anyone else in t…

The like / +1 is a useful signal though. What if it were visible in the UI but didn't trigger notifications or alerts?

Hmmm, you can turn off like notifications though. I did that long ago for instagram and facebook.
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