Snapchat is the social media platform that teenagers love and parents hate. Nothing aggravates my parents more than watching me pucker my lips and cross my eyes to my phone screen in the passenger seat while they're driving. The app gets a bad rep in my opinion. It's more than just taking pictures of strangers in public, using the MPH to brag about how dangerously fast you're going, or using the temperature effect to show everyone how warm it is outside. Snapchat has saved my a** every once in a while, and keeps me closer to my friends and in the loop.

Snapchat is where you can take a picture of yourself through your phone's camera and send it to anyone who has the app for 1-10 seconds. It sounds pretty dumb and that it would get old, but it really doesn't.

I go to college 600 miles away from my hometown, which meant I had to leave a lot of my friends behind. When I left, I was mostly scared of losing contact with them and not being able to hear about their everyday endeavors like I did in the high school locker-room every morning. I haven't lost contact with my friends and I can say I'm pretty up to date with everything going on in their lives. How I talk to my friends day to day is mostly through Snapchat. I'll get to see their faces during school and right when they wake up in the morning. I can tell when they're bored out of their mind in class, or comfort them when they send me a teary eyed picture. Being able to see their faces and what's going on in their lives has kept me closer to everyone back home.

To piggyback off the point I just made, seeing someone's face every day promotes some f****** girl power. If you take pictures of yourself this often, you're bound to start to like what you see. My friends will nervously Snapchat me pre Prom or first date and I can reply in all caps YOU LOOK AMAZING or HOW DID I GET A FRIEND AS HOT AS YOU - y'know keeping it subtle. People say our generation is self-obsessed, but I would have to disagree. I think we should promote, not shame, people communicating via portraits.

Lastly, Snapchat has brought about some killer spirit. This ranges from school spirit to pride on a national holiday. The way Snapchat is so good at doing this is through their geotags. Geotags are graphic designs places on your picture that can be for a specific holiday or your location. In high school, people would make geotags when they ran for Class President urging people to vote for them, and it really worked. Snapchat also has graphics for holidays and important days in history. For example, international women's day just passed and I can honestly say I wouldn't have remembered it if Snapchat didn't make a design of empowerment.

In summary, it's time to stop the Snapchat shame. Raise your selfie cameras, high boys and girls. Reconnect with your friends back home, share some school spirit, and while we're on the topic, quit using the dog filter.