Does Anyone Use Snapchat Anymore? Actually, Yes
Maeve Ginzberg remembers when she first downloaded Snapchat. She was in high school, and did it at the request of her best friend; their long streak would eventually break when Maeve went to study abroad in college and had less-reliable cell service. Now a 27-year old copywriter living in New York, Maeve only uses Snapchat rarely — to stay in touch with one particular friend and also to keep up with a group Snap. The app has a sentimental appeal, says Maeve, who reflects on Snapchat’s unique way of reminding her of “stuff that just feels like a relic in a way.”
But it wasn’t always this way. When Snapchat launched in 2012, back when we used Vine and Musical.ly instead of TikTok, it wasn’t intended to be a vehicle for nostalgia. Like any social media platform, people joined Snapchat because their friends joined — because it was cool. We all want to go where the people are, and in the mid-2010s, Snapchat had an iron grip on the under-25 population.
Unlike with Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, where posts would live indefinitely, you had to actively be on Snapchat to know what was going on. The urgency of a one-second snap or a 24-hour story preyed on our fear of missing out. Celebrities like Kylie Jenner, DJ Khaled (“major key”), and Blac Chyna made headlines and added to pop culture by posting stories. Users refreshed over and over just to keep up.
But the app buckled under the weight of its own success. Despite a near-exhaustive market penetration, Snap sought to integrate other age groups and soon learned that the things that attracted boomers repelled zillennials. After a series of widely disliked redesigns, the social media platform began to hemorrhage users; Kylie Jenner’s infamous Tweet has been mythologized as the final blow.
But Snapchat is far from being a company in peril. According to the Pew Research Center, as of 2021 about 65% of 18-29-year-olds still use Snapchat — they couldn’t possibly all be creepy dudes looking to follow up with 19-year old Tinder matches. So, who are they?
