Social media puts pressure on its (often millennial) users to keep up with their friends' and followers' fun-filled lives, and Late Night Snap Hacks offers a method of making a user's online life look adventurous while letting that same user lie around at home and watch movies.
The website is a simple browser app that plays looped videos of generic late-night scenes. The idea is that, in theory, users can record their computer screens with their phones and then send those videos as Snapchat or Instagram Stories. In reality, the video quality will probably deteriorate too much to be convincing, but Late Night Snap Hacks is more about the novelty than the practicality.
Scenes on the site include a densely packed music festival, a house party and a nightclub (populated by a guy wearing a pink bunny mascot head.)
Novelty Social Media Scenes
'Late Night Snap Hacks' Makes it Look Like Users are at the Club
Trend Themes
1. Virtual Experiences - As more people spend time socializing online, there is an opportunity to create virtual experiences that mimic real-life social events.
2. Faux-authenticity - Consumers are seeking to portray an authentic version of themselves on social media, even if it means using curated, staged content like Late Night Snap Hacks.
3. Social Media Pressure - With the increasing pressure to present an idealized version of oneself online, there is an opportunity to create tools that help users achieve that without actually having to live the experiences.
Industry Implications
1. Event Planning - Event planners could create virtual experiences that can be shared on social media, allowing users to present themselves as if they are actually at the event, which could be especially appealing in the current pandemic climate.
2. Marketing - Marketing firms could harness the trend of faux-authenticity by creating curated content for social media campaigns that appears to be candid but is actually staged.
3. Social Media - Social media platforms could explore ways to alleviate the social pressure users feel to present a certain image online, for example by creating features that allow users to opt-out of follower counts or written comments in favor of more personal interaction.