I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m too old for Snapchat. Which is a sobering thought, because as a Millennial, I’ve been part of the generation that truly understood the internet first.
I was there, and Tom was too!
For better or worse, Millennials have led the charge as social media has evolved. From Friendster to MySpace to Facebook and Instagram, we were some of the first to adopt these platforms.
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And then Snapchat came and at least for those of us on the older edge of the Millennial curve, it’s baffling.
I suddenly knew what my parents felt like as I became obsessed with the chatrooms and message boards of the mid-’90s and they just didn’t get it .
That said, those photo filters are super fun.
I pretty much only have the app installed so that I can use filters on my dogs. Which I then save and share on Facebook like the old person I’ve apparently become.
There’s actually some pretty impressive tech in some of those filters.
While not totally seamless, many of the smoothing and make-up filters do a really good job of cleaning up a basic selfie.
They don’t always work as expected.
Sometimes it doesn’t quite register our faces, sometimes they’ll register faces that aren’t there, and other times… this happens.
Sometimes it’s better when they work in ways you weren’t prepared for.
This is a photograph that will last much longer in your memory than a successful face-swap would. So an unexpected result from a Snapchat filter can be beneficial, unless you’re Ryan Hill.
Ryan’s story involves the gender-swapping filters, which are kind of incredible.
Ryan Hill decided to try out the gender-swapping and when it turned out pretty good, he had an idea for a prank.
I mean, the filter does a pretty good job.
There are a few tells, like around the neck of his shirt or his left eye, but I could see mistaking those for artifacts of a smoothing filter.
It was the caption he attached to the photo that caused him trouble.
Thinking it would be funny, he added the text “I have your bf’s t-shirt on” and sent it to Melissa Dunsmore, his current girlfriend.
Wanting to egg her on a bit, he also sent her a message.
It’s a classic case of reverse psychology. If you tell someone not to look, they’re going to look.
Personally, I feel like this would have tipped me off that something was up, but not Melissa.
She immediately told him not to bother coming home after work.
Even after explaining that it was actually him and just a joke, she wasn’t letting him get away with it.
He couldn’t believe she actually believed it was another girl.
To be fair, if you don’t know about the filter, there’s no other explanation for the picture — I definitely don’t blame her for getting mad!
Even after he’d fully explained, she was angry at him for the prank.
He’s suffering through some serious silent treatment and stuck on the couch for the night. Ouch.
If it makes you feel any better, Ryan, I think it’s funny.
Ryan’s not the only one who got in trouble for this kind of prank.
Another Snappy prankster, Sasha, also discovered that her girlfriend didn’t find this kind of thing funny either.
Sasha sent her girlfriend, Leona, this photo of herself with the filter on.
Sasha said she thought her girlfriend would recognize that it was her with a filter on right away, but that’s not what happened.
Her girlfriend was NOT amused.
Much like Ryan’s girlfriend, Leona came back swinging. She told Sasha to enjoy her night with “that girl in your bed” and told her never to speak to her again.
Sasha also got blocked for her efforts.
Sasha said eventually she did get unblocked, but Leona didn’t find the situation very funny. At least Sasha can commiserate to Ryan that at least THEY thought it was funny, even though their girlfriends decidedly did not.
When Ryan shared the story on Facebook, it went viral.
Scrolling through the tens of thousands of comments, an awful lot seem to be couples tagging their SO.
Some even decided to try out the filter themselves.
Some girlfriends made it very clear what would happen if their SO’s tried something similar.
So consider this a very important PSA.
If your partner sends a random pic of someone in their clothes from Snapchat, look for a resemblance before flying off the handle.
Let Ryan’s prank fail be a lesson.