We forgot about Snapchat

When we talk about 2016, we always refer to how that year was unforgettable for Generation Z: the release of some albums that have become iconic, the explosion of streetwear, the nostalgia linked to the memories of early adolescence collaborate to make golden in our memories a period that, although it is only six years away, seems to belong to another century. Part of that period was obviously also the social reference in which, in addition to the usual Facebook and Twitter, had their true point of reference in a name then disappeared from the memories of many: Snapchat. Founded in 2011 by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown, the app reached its peak of popularity at the turn of 2015 and 2016 distinguishing itself from the competition not only for its colorful and vibrant graphics, but also for a technical aspect that had no equal. Snapchat liked it because it was unprecedented, relying on two features that were unheard of at the time: filters and Snaps. If you fall into that group of people who have never created a Snap, you're probably just too old or too young. The idea of being able to create a content with a limited duration of 24 hours was something never seen before, totally opposite to the vision of "a post is forever" used by Facebook and Instagram and therefore able to attract a new and creative slice of users. Snapchat succeeded in pushing the boundaries between communication and immediacy, giving a whole new appeal to social network posts.

To embellish the Snap, of course, there were the filters that with their exaggeratedly funny aesthetic inevitably marked the aesthetics of selfies in 2016. No social network before then had thought in this sense to selfies, and also for this reason the app managed to become a real cult capable of framing the needs of teenagers in simple elements such as selfies, but above all with the desire and the need to always be there, connected and responsive, ready to respond to a Snap or to "add" new people. Snapchat purposely played with the younger generation's desire to always be reachable, and built its success on this foundation until, like all social networks, it ran out of steam. Snapchat's popularity, to tell the truth, was very short-lived, and it's not even that much to blame. Once the novelty effect was over, the Snaps and filters weren't enough to convince users to use an app dedicated only to those features that shortly after, in 2016, became the new secret weapon of Instagram and its Stories. With a user base far greater than that of Snapchat, Instagram took little time to convince users, giving them a new form of communication capable of attracting everyone, from adults who used the app in a clumsy way to creators who quickly learned to exploit it for their personal gain. Within a short time Stories also integrated filters, giving users the possibility to create their own and make them available to the community, contributing, for better or worse, to the introduction of the Stories format on any other social network: Facebook, Twitter and even Whatsapp.

Today Snapchat is hardly definable as the social of reference for teenagers, although perhaps it never really was. A transient phenomenon, too far ahead to be understood, the creation of Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown can count on 300 million users every day - in the United States, in 2021, 48% of users were between 15 and 25 years old - a number that is still relevant enough to continue to consider Snapchat among the social networks on which at least brands should stay. What matters most at the moment is that, despite the fact that the data does not speak explicitly of a real ruinous fall of Snapchat, today no teenager - at least in Italy - will no longer claim to prefer the social of Ghostface Chillah (this is the name of the iconic ghost in the logo) to any other social network. And this is likely to become a long-term problem for the platform founded by Evan Spiegel, Reggie Brown and Bobby Murphy eleven years ago.