Snapchat announced some big changes today, and the internet is freaking out. The Washington Post is sounding the alarm that Snapchat has just made itself “Olds”-friendly, while Gizmodo is claiming that “Snapchat is Ruined” entirely, a statement with which we don’t disagree. The popular platform has been beloved for its spontaneous, unfiltered nature, which has come to stand in sharp contrast to the hyper-edited posts coming through in our Instagram feeds. Now, Snapchat will allow for people to adopt the “greatest hits” approach to their Snapchat feeds as well, by releasing Memories, which will allow users to save pictures in the app and upload old videos and photos to their stories. As a result, instead of seeing what buffoonery your friends are up to in the moment, you’ll likely now be subjected to edited versions of things that happened to them months ago. In other words, you’ll be getting the same mostly-staged content they’re already posting to Instagram and Facebook.
As much of social media can lead to unhealthy comparisons based on unrealistic representations of life, Snapchat was basically the only outlet for those looking for authentic content that wouldn’t make them wonder why their lives (and faces and wardrobes and homes and vacations) don’t look as unnaturally perfect as those of others in their feed. Now that this is no longer the case, we suppose people will have to turn to actual human-to-human, IRL interactions for their reality checks. Instead of signing on to see what your friend is up to, for example, you might have to call that friend, make a plan to hang out, and experience them in person in all of their unfiltered glory. “But what about all of the times in which that isn’t possible?,” you may be asking. “How will I keep track of the daily lives of hundreds of people within minutes, daily?” Our response? Perhaps it’s time to ask yourself if you really, truly, want to know what that-guy-you-met-once is having for lunch. And if the answer is still “yes,” fret not; we’re certain some new company will be along shortly to supplant Snapchat, and in the meantime, you could always outfit your social circle with a collection of GoPros to approximate the classic Snap effect.