{"id":3918,"date":"2016-05-14T13:06:13","date_gmt":"2016-05-14T20:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/?p=3918"},"modified":"2017-03-30T16:31:09","modified_gmt":"2017-03-30T23:31:09","slug":"snapchat-photoshop-x-tenacious-d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/14\/snapchat-photoshop-x-tenacious-d\/","title":{"rendered":"Snapchat = Photoshop x Tenacious D"},"content":{"rendered":"

Power to the people\u2014that\u2019s always been my jam<\/a>. Instagram made photo adjustment<\/em> mainstream. Now Snapchat is making photo manipulation<\/em> mainstream.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t believe me? On May 5 alone, 224 million<\/strong> people saw pictures of each other turned into taco-heads (below), each with a Taco Bell ad attached. Per AdWeek<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The average user played with Taco Bell’s ad for 24 seconds before sending it as a “snap.” In terms of unique plays\u2014or the number of times individual people interacted with the ad\u2014the campaign generated 12.5 years’ worth of play<\/strong> in a day.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Prior to that, on Super Bowl Sunday alone 165 million people saw images featuring a Gatorade dump. One can only guess how many swap faces, add masks, and share the results each day.<\/p>\n

It makes me think of absurdist rock duo Tenacious D<\/a>. Realizing that straight-faced metal can get only so hard (it eventually tops out with Norwegian cookie-monster vocals, etc.), they mastered that idiom, then busted right through the limits by making it insanely funny (and just insane)<\/a>. In the same way Snapchat combines technical excellence with a playful context<\/strong>. As a Taco Bell manager says,<\/p>\n

\n

“The content is expected to be lightweight and humorous, and the platform empowers you to be nimble and efficient in creation\u2026 That doesn’t mean it’s not an artful craft, however.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0Earlier this year I wrote<\/a>,<\/p>\n

\n

The genius of Instagram was in helping regular people be better. The genius of Snapchat was in letting people not care<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0But that undersells their accomplishment. Context<\/strong> (expectations) + Power<\/strong> catalyzes creative output.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s very easy to look down one\u2019s nose (\u201coh, it\u2019s not really<\/em> creative, you can do just whatever they spoon-feed you, disposible \u2260 valuable\u201d) and not be wholly wrong. Yet Snapchat has gotten hundreds of millions of people<\/em> creating, and at a visual level that otherwise would have been completely out of reach. And that<\/em> is power to the people.<\/p>\n

\"TacOH\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Power to the people\u2014that\u2019s always been my jam. Instagram made photo adjustment mainstream. Now Snapchat is making photo manipulation mainstream. Don\u2019t believe me? On May 5 alone, 224 million people saw pictures of each other turned into taco-heads (below), each with a Taco Bell ad attached. Per AdWeek: The average user played with Taco Bell’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3918"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3918"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5256,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3918\/revisions\/5256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}