Dr. Snapchat or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love to Snap

• By Ben Fraternale

I resisted the lure of Snapchat for four years, ignoring its burgeoning popularity and rejecting its necessity. As a massive fan of content, big or small, the notion of that content vanishing literally churned my organs. I took this hilarious picture of my cat drinking out of the toilet, but now what? I took this video of an ice skater falling on his face, but only a few people will see it? Sure, you can download them to your phone, but at that point it may as well be on Facebook.

My Snapchat intervention came in the form of TimeLine Managing Director (and visionary) Sean LaGamma. It’s ironic that within the walls of a video production company, which specializes in editing among other things, he obsessed over unedited stream-of-consciousness videos. His philosophy that the app allows “goofiness without consequences” began to rub off on me, because it’s how I attempt to live life anyway.

Soon, my phone was flooded with Sean’s snaps, particularly ones he calls “cheers,” in which he smashes any beverage or food he is holding into the camera and then ingests it (a trend started by Sean’s friends, The Dolces). This, combined with the app’s facial recognition feature (which can render your face as Satan, turn your mouth into a projectile rainbow spigot, etc), really piqued my interest in actually using Snapchat.

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