Self(ie) Confidence
Recently I was in the shower, snapchatting my homies, and reflecting upon how far I’ve come.
Just to clarify, no, I was not sending my pals nudes. I was just sending them super unflattering pictures of my hair mid-shampoo, all above the shoulders, I promise. And parents, before you stop reading in disgust at the thought of the plugged-in culture that your teens are growing up in being so pervasive that they can’t even tear themselves away from their phones to shower, hear me out.
Snapchat has legitimately changed my life and has served as an incredible tool for self-acceptance. Prior to Snapchat, I would never take pictures of myself. I would just cross my fingers that someone would take a flattering, candid photo of me, it would somehow end up on social media, and I could make it my profile picture. So essentially, my profile pictures never changed.
Then, I met my good friend Snapchat. My early Snapchats tended to be of either blackness or the floor, but gradually I turned the camera around. The culture of Snapchat is very different from what I was used to. On other forms of social media, pictures that make it online are only the best of the best, there to be praised, commented on and liked. On Snapchat, pictures represent a means of communication, only to be seen for a maximum of ten seconds.
The brevity of this form of communication took the pressure off. Now I was Snapchatting with what I like to call the training wheels of Snapchat. These consist of text bars to cover double chins, emojis to cover pimples, and geofilters to distract from the face entirely. We’ve all been there, and even now, as a seasoned Snapchatter, I often employ these training wheels when I’m not a my peak confidence.
But Snapchat has raised my baseline for self-confidence. Looking at everyone so up close and personal humanizes the masters of social media that we tend to put on pedestals. The truth is, we all have days where we feel like we need text bars to hide behind. But Snapchat forces us to show ourselves, even on days when we aren’t feeling ourselves (especially while upkeeping Snapstreaks, don’t even get me started on that burden).
While I believe Snapchat to be an important tool for self-acceptance and communication, people who haven’t entered the Snapchat world believe that partaking in this form of socialization is vain and self-centered. People make jokes about us wily teens always taking selfies and focusing on ourselves instead of the world around us. And while at times that may be the case, the world we live in today makes self-acceptance a difficult thing to achieve. There are unavoidable symbols of perfection surrounding us everywhere we go. So, if Snapchat has the ability to promote self-confidence in a world of unrealistic expectations, a little vanity is a small price to pay.
Finally, my friends, my peers, my fellow high school hooligans: don’t send nudes. Any piece of writing about the value of Snapchat just wouldn’t be complete without addressing the nudes problem. I know, I know, you’re feeling yourself, you look good, you’re comfortable in your own skin. But, people have fast fingers. They will screenshot it, even with that three second timer. No matter how much you want to #freethenipple, it’s still considered child porn. Be confident. Proudly snap your selfies. Use those cool new filters. Just don’t take a picture of your butt.
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