All this week I have barely been able to tackle my to-do lists, get to work on time or even make my bed. Nor can I clearly post a Wednesday-specific post on a Wednesday. I can’t. Ok, I mean I could but as Selena Gomez says “why would I want to?” I am too busy conversing with all of my friends in every which way imaginable which is why I’m in need of as much coffee as possible! Do you know how time-consuming it is to texting with your friends while also trying to Facebook-stalk but then also keep up a conversation with them on a group chat in Instagram and comment on their latest Snapchat?
The other night my roommate and I were laughing remembering the time we each received our very first text message ever. I was at a Penn State Football game my Freshman year and looking around a bit shell-shocked thinking “What’s happening? What is this? Who is this?” It was the ultimate ‘New phone, who dis?’ moment. Amie, my roommate, had a similar story of just complete and utter “WTF is happening right now?” That was fall of 2002 and baby, we’ve come a long way. We continued to laugh about how we were just innocent girls typing way to our friends and boyfriends 10 cents at a time, and I marveled at how great I got at texting as my then-boyfriend taught me the wonders of T-9. With that little trick, I managed to rack up a sixty dollar cell phone bill that my father was just thrilled to pieces to receive from Verizon Wireless. No worries, I paid him back, but my parents do like to remind me of that one from time to time!
With the insane advancement of communication and technology it’s no wonder all of our apps have created ways for us to continue to communicate in ways that we couldn’t have imagined when we were first learning to text…at 19. I actually love having so may different ways to talk to my friends, after all, I’m a big proponent of talking, communicating and all in all staying connected since my friends and I live all over the country. However, it’s getting to the point where you either have to choose your main Social Media platform of choice, or you have to commit to ALL of them. Mainly, we’re talking The Big Three. No, not Kevin, Kate and Randall from “This Is Us”, however, they are great and I adore every Pittsburgh plug. I mean the Big Social Media Three: Facebook (The OG), Instagram (My go to) and Snapchat. I know, I am missing Twitter; but you can post to Twitter from Instagram so for me it’s a great two-birds-one-stone kind of move.
This past week, however, OG Facebook recently introduced ‘Stories’ to our timelines. WTF (Wednesday) Facebook, you have had my account since you were strictly a college site and now you have not only my parents account but my grandmas. WTF, aren’t we getting a bit greedy by also adding stories? If you don’t know what stories are then…wow. No, no witty comeback I’m just really impressed if someone is unaware in 2017 about stories. Snapchat really is the one who changed the trajectory of social-media-story-telling by allowing us to take photos/quick videos and either send them to our ‘Story’ (aka a Facebook wall) where they live for 24 hours. Or you can send your hilariously basic flower-crown-filtered-self to that guy you’re crushing on and it will go away after 7-seconds, making him beg for more!
I definitely did not hop on the Snapchat train when that little ghost pulled out of the station, but have been a solid devotee for about 15 months now. Then, last August, Instagram decided to get into the story business. Choosing to not have any of the fun filters that Snapchat provides, these stories are great for celebs, companies and larger brands to show off a store opening, or a red carpet premier to their fans all from one app. Now, when I’m on these apps and killing time waiting for a nail appointment, or I got to Happy Hour first and need to look important and busy, I don’t mind flitting through these different apps. However, if I see a funny photo that I want to send to my friends I feel like I need to have all of these apps open to make sure the photo hit all of my ‘stories’. In fact, this happened just this past Sunday.
I know it was Sunday because the photo I shared, around basically every platform I could find, was a poor sap sitting in the drive-thru at Chick-Fil-A®. If you aren’t aware of the deliciousness of Chick-Fil-A® it is the ultimate chicken/fries fast-food joint and the only place I know of that sells fruit salad without melon; this is a big thing to me since I am allergic to melon. Anyway, the hilarity of this photo is that everyone who’s ever eaten at Chick-Fil-A® knows they are always wishing you a ‘blessed day’ and they are not open on Sunday. So of course, I had to share this photo with everyone I knew. I took to the Snapchat, Insta-Stories and of course, Facebook just to get this photo to my friends. It was actually a bit ridiculous and time-consuming. We need a Hootsuite app for stories where you can take photo/filter/write/draw on it and in a click of a button send it to all of our stories. WTF why didn’t I go to school for that instead of journalism? I would be the Josh Kaminsky of the app world. Ok, that’s a terrible reference unless you’re hooked on Freeform’s Young & Hungry like me and a few of my friends.
Thankfully, I was in the car wash line when I was sending this photo because truly, I would have had a Sophie’s Choice moment and needed to pick which ‘story’ would win. Ok, I thought about it and it would be Snap. When it doubt, you have to go with the original and ugh the ‘pretty filter’ gets me every time. And now, thanks to Facebook stories, the memes floating around the internet are pretty spectacular. The big one is that Excel 2017 will now feature stories or calculators will now have stories; my friend sent me one the other morning (via Instagram chat of course!) showing a couple getting an Ultrasound saying they, too, would include stories. Actually, this doesn’t seem too far-fetched, I mean how will we know which one of our unborn children just heard the funniest story or ate the weirdest food that day or their thoughts on the latest Vanderpump Rules reunion? Only thing is, they’ll need to figure out the wi-fi password.
So, friends, what do you think of all the different stories and ways we can communicate? Are you sticking to just one? Are you embracing these changes? Are you excited for the new advancements coming to Microsoft 2017? Ha, kidding! Anyway, leave me a comment and let’s find another communication path for all of our texts/chats/bitmojis and more.
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