Snapchat is the invention of our generation.
We have come a long way from best friends lists and drawing on the screen to finish our sentences because the text box was too small. Some changes were for the better (dog filter, I'm looking at you), and stories are great, for the most part. Don't get me wrong, I will Snapchat-story the hell out of a piece of avocado toast or my Starbucks drink, but also, unfortunately, that "add to story" button gets pressed one too many times during my nights out.
Yes, I know that anyone can screenshot my story and it can affect the rest of my life, but when you're drunk, that rational thinking goes adios after the second shot and gets replaced with "everyone NEEDS to see this video of Becky chugging a half-G."
So now, you see the problem.
Waking up the morning after is just a race to shame-delete everything off your Snapchat story. (Bonus points awarded if you have replies to your story that say "you should probably delete this").
Before the tide of judgment rolls in, I'm not advocating for blacking out, nor do I particularly enjoy when it happens. However, there is a mysterious beauty behind it. I mean one minute you're dancing on the stage at Sigma Apple Pie and then you wake up at your friend's boyfriend's brother's best friend's roommate's apartment wondering what the hell happened. Did I invent teleportation? Time travel? How mysterious.
But now, you don't have to put on your Sherlock hat and piece together your night, you can just re-live it, thanks to Snapchat.
The mystery is gone, and boy, I don't want to re-live the truth.
The embarrassment of the night before is out there for everyone to see. Your friends, your sister, that guy you've been trying so hard to hook up with, yeah they saw the video you took shoving half a pizza in your mouth.
If you're a DAB like me, the embarrassment is not as much in what you put on your story, but what your friends put on theirs. The term "hot mess" comes to mind, and I visibly cringe when I watch some videos.
It ruins the mystery and shatters the memories I did have. Like hey, remember when you were dancing on the bar last night, looking all sexy? Except when your friends Snapchat story, it actually shows you gyrating like a broken blender to a Shakira song, then dropping your beer.
Snapchat has made it too easy to broadcast all of our embarrassing drunk moments out to the world. While my Snapchat indiscretions haven't come back to bite me (that hard), heres wondering if its really worth keeping that app open on a night out.
My story is deleted, but the memories are for forever. Public embarrassment has a new face, and it's wearing a dog filter.