Snapchat captions are a specific genre of text that have a unique set of rhetorical features and conventions. Snapchat is an app that is used mostly by young people to communicate with their friends and therefore authors of Snapchat captions typically regard their friends as their audience and not, for example, their boss. Because of both the audience of the snapchats and their impermanent nature, the tone of the captions are typically a little more casual than, for example, a Facebook post, which may be seen by older relatives and/or will be able to be viewed for years to come. Also because of their younger audience, slang and (sometimes) curse words are typically viewed as acceptable over Snapchat. For example, if a girl receives flowers from her boyfriend, she may snapchat a picture of the flowers and caption it “my bae is the best” because it is generally assumed that the audience will know hip slang words used by young folks like the word, “bae”. The purpose of a Snapchat caption is generally to give some more information about what is going on or make some sort of commentary about the picture. To go off of my last example, the girl used the caption “my bae is the best” to denote that the flowers she received were from her boyfriend and to express gratitude. Had she not put this caption, someone who viewed the picture may think that the sender saw the flowers at the grocery store or maybe that her grandmother gave them to her. In this way, the caption serves the purpose to set the context of the picture and let the viewer know what is going on. Captions for snapchats also generally take their context into account by being somehow related to what is going on in the picture. For example, if someone is snapchatting a picture of an omelette they made, “yummmm!” would be an appropriate caption because it is related to the picture, while “just bought a new pair of shoes!” would be an inappropriate caption because it doesn’t have anything to do with their breakfast. Furthermore, because there is a limit to how many characters one can use to caption the snapchat, snapchat captions have to be very short. Because of their brevity, conventional spelling and grammar rules do not always apply. Abbreviations, acronyms, incomplete sentences, and lack of punctuation are all generally accepted on snapchat captions. To use my last example of snapchatting a picture of an omelette, “omg totez delish” is just as acceptable as “Oh my god! This omelette is totally delicious!”. As long as the caption gets across what one is trying to say, grammar and spelling rules can be disregarded. Moreover, snapchat users can use emojis instead of text to convey their message. For example, instead of captioning the picture “omg totez delish,” a user can simply use the emoji with hearts for eyes to convey the message that they are enjoying the omelette. What makes a snapchat caption a snapchat caption is that it is a short blurb pertaining to a picture sent over snapchat.
I really like that you chose snapchat because I would have never thought of that! Snapchat posts are very specific and recognizable almost immediately because they look a very specific way in comparison to any other social media post. That is what makes it a good type of genre. Your examples are good and accurate because you’ve managed to capture the randomness of snaps considering we can take pictures of literally anything and caption it with just a few words or less. There really is no other app like snapchat that allows you to capture pictures and videos to send and share to your friends. Additionally snapchat now allows you to message people like texting which makes it unique that way too. And you are right about the part about the audience not being your boss because I think it’s safe to say we don’t always snap things we’d want anyone but our friends to see! But again, I like the idea of snaps as a textual genre, good job!
ReplyDeleteI liked how you introduced the app of Snapchat before you went into detail of the Snapchat captions. I used to have a Snapchat and I enjoyed using it at times, but then I got tired of it, began to not use it as much anymore, and then deleted the app. Anyway, you have some good analysis about the captions in Snapchat and what people may out in their captions for their posts. I was pretty intrigued when you said that “because of both the audience of the snapchats and their impermanent nature, the tone of the captions are typically a little more casual than, for example, a Facebook post, which may be seen by older relatives and/or will be able to be viewed for years to come.” Overall, I like this blog a lot; you gave enough information to persuade me about what may go through people’s minds while writing their captions for their photos. Good Job!
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