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My Mom snapchats with me.
She once sent me this pic:
Snapchat
I snapchat with my wife.
Sometimes we'll use it instead of texting, like we did during this one conversation:
Snapchat
Sometimes, my wife will snapchat with my mom.
Like she did when she sent this pic:
Snapchat
I snapchat with wth my coworkers Steve Kovach, Jay Yarow, and Alyson Shontell.
Alyson likes to send video snapchats. Usually of dogs.
I snapchat with my cousins.
I'd snapchat with you, if we knew each other.
People call Snapchat a "sexting" app because you use it to send someone a self-destructing image or video.
But using Snapchat with friends and family does not make me weird, unusual, or a good candidate to be mayor of New York.
Lots of people use Snapchat. The app is the 10th most downloaded free app in the Apple App Store.
My favorite thing to do with Snapchat is to take a goofy picture of myself or the people I'm with, and send it to 20 or so people via Snapchat.
Then, over the next hour or so, snapchats from most of those 20 people will trickle in, giving me a shot of I'm-not-alone-in-universe juice each time.
Snapchatting is sometimes better than…
…Twitter, because you can select who you want to see your photo. The photo you're sending isn't exactly private, but it's not immediately out there for everyone to see and judge and save forever.
…Instagram, for all the same reasons its better than Twitter, and also because with Snapchat your photo doesn't have to be pretty, well-composed, or worth sharing with hundreds of people.
…Facetime, because no one wants to look at a live video stream of themselves while trying to hold a conversation.
…Phone calls, because calling someone will give the person you are calling the impression that you expect them to talk for at least 5 minutes. Maybe you just wanted to say "hi, thinking of you" and that's it.
…Texting, because while you can send images via SMS or iMessage, with Snapchat, you can send an image with words on it. That's a 2-for-1 bargain.
…Facebook, because on Facebook, images are tagged and live forever. While it won't ruin my career to have a picture of me dancing in a living room with a bottle of Bud Light Lime in my grip, I'd prefer said image to be distributed and destroyed as fast as possible.
Sending someone a Snapchat is like making a funny face or saying hi to someone when you walk into the office.
It's saying: I exist, you exist, and we're both happy about that.