Snapchat Stories

Brooks Lalley

How would you feel if your best friend wore the same dress as you to prom, even though she knew exactly what you were wearing? Well, Snapchat feels the same way about Instagram. This past summer, controversy arose as Instagram decided to add their own “story” feature to their app, practically stealing Snapchats signature shtick.
If you know anything about Wesleyan, you know that there is approximately zero tolerance for plagiarism. Therefore, it should come to no surprise that the Wesleyan community is not too excited that Instagram basically plagiarized Snapchat by stealing their most popular feature.
Honor Council member, Suzanne Godard said, “I think Instagram was trying to gain their popularity back because Snapchat is all the rage now, but I think they could have gone about that by coming up with something that was their own.” By supporting Instagram stories, Quinn is supporting plagiarism and by supporting plagiarism, Quinn should basically be sent to honor council. If this were a perfect world, Instagram would be sent to the honor council, receive a thorough investigation along with an intimidating stare down by Mrs. Wischerth and walk away with a punishment and lessons learned. But that is not the real world, and as for now, Instagram will remain the same.
Luckily for Snapchat, however, Instagram stories are not even that good to begin with. My opponent may argue that the pen accuracy is better; however if you are a living, breathing person you know that no one cares about pen accuracy. While given features such as drawing, chatting and privacy settings– along with the layout– largely remain the same, Snapchat offers many other options for more creativity. With geofilters, face recognition filters, countless stickers and (my personal favorite) Bitmoji, Instagram stories are no match for Snapchat.
What would life be without the ability to express ourselves through Bitmoji? And in what other circumstance would you be able to convey your emotions through Snapchat’s wide sticker variety that includes everything from a salty sloth to a crying pineapple?
Freshman Caroline Willis agrees. “My favorite Snapchat feature to use when I post stories is stickers because there are a lot of different ones for whatever you’re posting,” Willis said. In essence, Instagram may have worn the same dress as Snapchat on Prom night, but Snapchat slayed harder than Beyoncé, while Instagram looked like Solange.

Instagram Stories

Quinn Kaloper

Out of all the social media options these days, Instagram is for sure the favorite. Instagram is used for a variety of things, the obvious being posting pictures. What people occasionally overlook is that Instagram is used for editing pictures, sharing videos and my personal favorite, Direct Messaging. Don’t lie to yourself; you have edited a picture without even posting it. Who needs VSCO anymore? Anyway, the option of “DM-ing” or “Direct Messaging” is simply used to ‘slide into ones DMs’ by sending someone you follow a message. You could send the DM to a group or just to one person. The new fancy Instagram update is the Instagram stories. Yes, I said that correctly, Instagram stories.
Some will hate on Instagram stories because they think Instagram is trying “to be like Snapchat.” But, Instagram stories are so much better than Snapchat stories; no matter what people say. In fact, Instagram stories have a better pen accuracy and there is way more option for pen styles and colors to write on your stories. Though you can not see who has screenshotted it, it still shows who has viewed the story. Lastly, my favorite bonus is that there is easy access to swipe back and see the previous story. So many times I will be watching Snapchat stories and miss something interesting and have to go back and find whose story it was on, which is just a pain. Plus, now there is no inconvenience of having two different apps. From daily stories to your perfectly-edited “Instagram worthy” pictures, Instagram has it all.
Brooks  says that I am supporting plagiarism and that I should be sent to the honor council, but that is just not right. What I am supporting is creativity. The creativity of drawing and expressing emotions. Some do not openly share their emotions on social media, but there are some that do—I respect that. Instagram stories are creative and have zero plagiarism. So… sorry (not sorry) Brooks; you’re wrong.
Snapchat is primarily just used in our current generation, unlike Instagram, which every generation uses. Most parents have an Instagram and even some grandparents. Only the cool and hip grandparents, of course. Parents and grandparents are grateful for the new update of Instagram stories so they don’t have to learn how to navigate a confusing app called Snapchat when they already know how to work Instagram. So, thank you Instagram engineers for creating Instagram stories.