Comment by SeoxyS | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SeoxyS | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

For the longest time, I found Snapchat to be the silliest thing ever. I didn't understand how Evan could have possibly turned down Facebook's $3B…

But then, I started _really_ using it, and something clicked. Snapchat enables serendipity in the digital world. Unlike traditional social networks, where people curate their image, limit the amount they post, and where a smart feed decides what you see, on Snapchat people post unfiltered real-time snapshots of their lives, and when you go through the story feed, you see everyone's content. Snapchat makes it dead easy to reply to stories by just swiping, and unlike a public comment on other networks, it goes straight into their chat inbox. That makes it really easy to start conversations about things actually going on in people's lives. It's the ultimate ice-breaker.

Thanks to that ability to super easily and non-awkwardly talk to people, I've become friends with people who would otherwise be strangers or merely acquaintances. I've had relationships and flings with girls that I only talked to because it was easy on Snapchat. (No sexting involved.) That effect is what makes Snapchat truly special and different than other networks.

That and Snapchat is just _fun_, in a way that Facebook with its serious Pharmaceutical blue logo isn't, despite Facebook's sleekness and clean UI. Everything from the filters, to the little badges you get for streaks and best friends, to the moving selfie picture in the little ghost, adds to the effect.

Maybe Snap will stick around and maybe it won't but I've already found myself reaching for snap to send an image of a restaurant instead of typing it, or sending a reaction selfie instead of an emoji because its so much easier than typing.

Is this _emphasis_ a meme I'm not aware of, or are you just copying the parent's particular usage?

It's common convention that's a couple decades old at this point, also included in markdown: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown#Example

RFC 7, from May 1969, used it: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7.txt

Correction on that RFC: The 1969 version was handwritten, and likely did not use underscores for emphasis (who does that in handwriting?). It was typed up electronically in what looks to be 2002, and plenty of examples of the underscore notation exist prior to then.

Not in handwriting but on typewriters, which didn't have italics. Underlining text was used for emphasis on typewritten documents. Which is probably the origin of this convention. You can't underline in plain ASCII either, so people started putting underline characters _around_ words instead.

It's old emphasis from at least the IRC heyday era (where I picked it up), likley earlier as some of the sibling comments allude to. Interesting, HN takes asterisk characters around text and parses it to italics like this, but I tended to know that as meaning bold font emphasis, with /this/ as italics.

Regardless, it's certainly an old habit

It’s a computer-era simulation of the 100 (?) year-old convention of using underline to represent emphasis in typewritten documents.

Or maybe the same convention might have even been used before typewriters, to mark up manuscripts? (A manuscript needs clear instructions to the typesetter, because someone’s handwriting might not make the distinction between Roman and Italic scripts immediately obvious.)

Well great, I feel super old now.

I do this sometimes. It's like a form of underlining when underlining isn't supported. Also, I think people get the habit from using Markdown, which uses _this_ for emphasis.

People use it all the time on IRC.

Oops, I've been writing too much Markdown!

Someone I know quit FB at the age of 22, when his grandma tagged a girl that he liked and commented "you'd make such a great couple" or some such. Age separation is a big deal.

Oh yeah. With your grandparents, mom, friends, etc. watching. You barely post anything.

I think the biggest place where facebook fails, is making it easier to segment people and create groups.

Where you can easily setup a group, of say friends, and you can more openly post. Without telling grandma about how you dropped LCD at the concert two days ago and had a wild time.

You _can_ do this now, but it's clunky and painful.

One thing I liked about my 5 minutes on google plus was how easy it was to filter groups out of my post. Yea FB has filters now, but I think google did it better.

Probably close to 80% of my Facebook activities these days take place in group messages for exactly this reason. It's easy to add and remove people to/from a group message while still retaining context, so it works well for planning ad-hoc outings where the group of people involved is quite fluid in its membership.

Oh no, was your phone okay?

^badjoke

Holy cringe... this is exactly the reason I tend to avoid Facebook in favor of the Instagram and such.

I think if Instagram Stories really does prove to be the death knell of Snapchat, it won't be because of Snapchat being inherently flawed, but because of the fickle tastes of the public swinging the pendulum of spontaneity vs. curation back towards the latter part of the spectrum.

I don't think that's to do with taste. More convenience. People already have large followings on Instagram and discovery is much easier. You're already posting there and now you can do stories without having to go to another app and build another following.

Sure, but that convenience still depends on what they want. Something they can share and then throw away within 24 hours, or something that they want to keep so that future followers can look at.

I'd still have to sign up for a Facebook-controlled service. Pass.

It might slow migration from Instagram to Snapchat, though.

They've added it to WhatsApp as well. Which has like 1 billion users around the world. Also now facebook controlled.

It doesn't bother you to have the perception of privacy without actual privacy? Like being alone, except for the hidden cameras.

Local Man Discovers Hindsight Bias, Shocked By Accuracy

... but can it make money? (pointing at twitter)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com