Snapchat is Redefining the Selfiie

I want to play a game. Don't worry though, this game won't result in the elaborate deaths of many B-list actors and create a movie franchise that goes seven movies too long. This game is actually quite simple to play. All you need to do is open facebook (which you probably have open in another tab anyways) and go to a friend's profile. When you get to their profile, go to their photos and begin to scroll backwards. The goal of the game is simple. Find a picture of your friend taking a "selfie" and like the photo. Once the photo is liked, it will pop up on everyone's newsfeed and instant shame will rain down upon the victim. 

There are two types of people in the world. Those who admit to have taken a selfie before and those who wear fire retardant pants. Selfies are done by both guys and girls. A girl selfie usually comes in form of the "Duck face peace sign combo" shown below...

You go girl. 

Guy selfies usually take the form of  the "I'm too sexy for my shirt mirror pic" shown below...

Damn bro, do you workout? 

No matter the form, all selfies are created equal...or so we thought. That was the belief until Snapchat came along. Snapchat has completely redefined the selfie. But, before we get into that, it is important that we look at the history of "the selfie" and see how it has evolved over time. So.. 

"Come with me

And you'll be

In a world of self infatuation"

"Take a look

And you'll see 

Into the history of the selfie." 

 

The Self Portrait

Believe it or not the selfie was created in the 1500's during the Early Renaissance era. Artists would paint themselves and call their masterpieces "Self-portraits" (selfies). These artists would often create inaccurate portrayals of themselves to enhance their appearance, because seriously, who would make a fugly picture of thy self? 

The Polaroid Camera

The selfie went through a dry few hundred years until the invention of the polaroid camera. The polaroid camera greatly sped up the creation of the selfie. The "instant selfie," as I like to call it, was an instant success among selfers (people who take selfies). 

Digital Cameras 

Digital cameras allowed selfers to store hundreds of selfies in one device. Selfers could also upload selfies from their cameras to the internet. Digital cameras sparked the early beginnings of the "mirror pic" and "duck face" movements. 

Camera Phones

The creation of the camera phone enabled selfers to take selfies and store them on their phone. No more carrying cameras. Selfers had their own phone calling selfie device right in their pockets. 

Smart Phones

Smartphones innovated the selfie by having the turn around camera function. Selfers could use this function to look at themselves while taking a selfie. As if we couldn't get enough of ourselves already! Smartphones also allowed selfers to use selfie apps like Snapchat!

Now that we have taken a crash course in selfie history, we can take a look at how Snapchat has completely redefined the selfie...

 

With Snapchat you can only send pictures to your friends for up to ten seconds and then they are deleted. This is extremely important because the selfer is no longer required to look good in their selfie. The goal of a snapchat selfie is to look as ugly as possible because who cares? It just gets deleted into Snapchat abyss (AKA Snapchat headquarters).   

Snapchat allows you to draw on your selfie. Have you ever taken a selfie and thought, "Damn, I really wish I was wearing a sombrero." Well, take your finger and draw a sombrero then! Go ahead and throw a mustache on their as well. The drawing function allows selfers to be creative as ever with their selfies. 

Perhaps one of the most important functions of Snapchat is the caption function. The caption function allows you to write a short sentence to your friends along with your selfie. Now you can have full on selfie conversations with selfies that literally have no context to your caption at all. 

Snapchat is the biggest innovation to the selfie since the creation of bathroom mirrors. Next time you walk through campus, look around you. I guarantee you will see at least one person idiotically looking at their smart phone and you won't question it. You know exactly what that person is doing. They are taking a Snapchat. Snapchat is rooted into our culture now. Get used to it, because Snapchat is here to stay. 

Dentists Prevent Cancer Prevention

Close your eyes, clear your mind, and take a deep breath. Put yourself in a place of absolute happiness. Somewhere that you feel safe, comfortable, and secure. Now, if you're still reading at this point then you clearly don't know how to follow directions because I said to close your eyes...but whatever. So now that you're in a place of happiness, I want you to put yourself in the two worst places in the world. Obviously, the first place you thought of was Captain D's because, yeah...enough said. I'd be willing to bet my left...overs that the second place you thought of was the dentist's office. I mean, what's more awesome than a stranger asking you questions with their hands in your mouth while simultaneously drilling away at your pearly yellowish-whites with the finest Craftsman tools on the market? If you said "nothing," then your sarcasm is not welcome here. But, what if I told you that dentists may be preventing cancer prevention with the so called "advice" that they give us? 

I recently read an article from mashable.com that said that dental cavities may reduce the risk for certain types of cancer (http://mashable.com/2013/09/16/dental-cavity-cancer). The article mentions a study conducted by researchers from the State University of New York at Buffalo involving 620 participants with cavities. Participants in the study showed a significantly reduced rate of developing types of head an neck cancers compared to a control group. However, the results are inconclusive because the study did not take into account different variables such as socioeconomic status and diet. So, the results just show a correlation, not a cause and effect relationship. And, as we have heard in every statistics class we have ever taken ever, correlation does not prove causation. 

Why does this story mean so much to me? Well, since you inadvertently asked me by reading the question out loud in your head, I'll tell you. Last year I had the worst dentist visit of my life. It was my first visit to our new dentist, so naturally I had to get x-rays done. The x-rays revealed horrible news. I had eight cavities. Eight freaking cavities. Before you judge me on my dental hygiene, I'll let you know I brush my teeth multiple times a day every day. Yeah, I used to eat my fair share of skittles, but rainbows taste awesome and you know it. Eight cavities though? That's ridiculous. Little did I know though that you can have cavities in between your teeth, which happened to be where all my cavities were located. Now, I mentioned earlier that I brushed my teeth multiple times a day, but I never said anything about flossing. Ahead of working out and going on a diet, flossing is the number one thing people say they do but actually don't. 

Needless to say, I got all my cavities filled and I am currently cavity free. I now floss my teeth every single day (Source: third paragraph, last sentence). However, if ever again a dentist tells me I have a cavity I will have one response for them. "Yeah, and I'm also cancer free." Checkmate dentists. 

Fake It Till You Make It

We have all heard the motto, "fake it till you make it." If you grew up in my generation, you've also heard the motto, "YOLO." Drake really is a modern day Confucius. As human beings, we like to think that we dislike fake things. However, this is not true. We love fake things. Fake plants, the WWE, Reality TV (oh the irony), and fake...bodies. The list goes on and on. When it comes to social media, there is one fake thing that we covet above all. Fake twitter accounts. 

If you have a twitter account, then it's likely you've come across one of these fake accounts or "parody" accounts. Some have probably been good, some have probably been bad. Well, I have conducted some extensive research (by that I mean looking at twitter while in class or procrastinating) and came up with the top three qualities of a good twitter parody account. 

1. The account portrays the person in the way the general public perceives them. 

The best fake accounts are the ones that tweet things that you think the actual person would say. For example, here is a tweet from the fake Isaiah Crowell (@FakeIsaiahCrow1) account..

Now, I'm sure the real Isaiah Crowell is a well-mannered, very intelligent human being that would never tweet something like this. However, the general public doesn't view him that way which makes this tweet hilariously hilarious. Let's take a look at a bad example. This tweet comes from an account for Si Roberson from Duck Dynasty.

If you've ever seen Duck Dynasty, then you immediately know Si would never say something like this. Instead, this fake account consists of "inspirational tweets," which seem to be written by a middle school girl giving relationship advice. What's up with that, jack!? 

2. The account tweets about current events

It is a lot more exciting when the account stays on top of current events. Here is a tweet from the fake Johnny Manziel account (@JohnnyFootball) about the Texas A&M vs. Alabama game this past weekend... 

Classic Johnny Football. 

3. Never reveal your true identity

Just like a superhero (minus Ironman), a parody account must NEVER reveal its true identity. The beauty of a parody account is that we actually believe it is the celebrity/athlete that is making the tweets. If we find out it is Jim, the 40 year old guy down the street that lives with his parents, making the tweets, that kind of ruins it for us. 

6 Seconds of Fame

It doesn't take a clock to tell you that six seconds isn't a lot of time. What can you actually do in six seconds anyways besides count to six? I guess it's about the time it would take to change a Nickelback song, but even then, that's too much time. I mean, it took Nicolas Cage a whole minute to be Gone in 60 Seconds. Now if only that movie was about the length of his acting career instead of stealing cars (sorry Mr. Cage, I really enjoyed Ghost Rider 2). The point is that you can't do many things in six seconds. However, Vine has given regular people like you and me the chance to become famous in six seconds. 

We can all think of someone who has had their "15 minutes of fame." My personal favorite being William Hung. You know, the guy from American Idol who sang the best rendition of She Bangs by Ricky Martin known to man? This guy. 

Vine allows its users to post videos up to six seconds long to their respective profiles. Through these videos, Vine has turned "15 minutes of fame" into "6 seconds of fame." Don't believe me? Well, lets look at three regular people who are now famous because of Vine. 

1. Lets start off with Brittany Furlan. She has over 2.5 million followers and 472 posts on Vine. Here is one of her videos...

2. Next we have Jared Stradling. He has over 177 thousand followers and 302 posts. He is most famous for his "Tummy Tuesday" posts... 

3. Lastly we have Maleek who has over 294 thousand followers and 228 posts. He is most known for his videos of "his little cuzo Terio." 

Without Vine, these three people may never have achieved their "6 seconds of fame."

Why is this so important? Social media sites, like Vine, give users so much power and freedom to produce their own content and reach virtually every corner of the world. In my opinion, Vine is currently the best video sharing outlet out there. Yes, even better than YouTube. Vine exploits the most common disease for humans. Which is, of course, a short attention span. I would much rather watch 100, six second Vine videos than 100, six minute YouTube videos. Lets get real, we all know that feeling when a friend asks us to watch a "hilarious" YouTube video. 99% of the time we don't want to watch the video but we do it anyways because we are good friends. We pretend to laugh at it and move on with our lives. Now, when it comes to Vine, nearly everyone will watch a recommended Vine video because they know it will only take six seconds of their time. Plus, Vine videos get straight to the punch-line, which is all we care about anyways.

Even with Instagram introducing video, I don't see Vine going away anytime soon. After all, there are only so many times we can watch an Instagram video of someone preparing their food before getting annoyed.