Oh, Snapchat. Whether you're an avid user or a naysayer, it's impossible to deny that this photo-based app has become a major part of the social media landscape (heck, even politicians are using it these days). But did you know that Snapchat has some hidden features that enable you to do all sorts of wild things you might hitherto have thought impossible? Welcome to the world of hacks, done by people who are way better at technology than I am — or ever will be.
In case you've been living under a rock, Snapchat is a messaging app that lets you send photos or videos that last a short burst of time in the recipient's phone before they disappear into the mysterious underworld of lost data. The images are customizable with text (including emoji!) and a tool that lets you use your fingers to draw on them, ultimately allowing for a more immersive communication experience. According to Snapchat's website, the platform is the best way to reach users between the ages of 13 and 34. Among that age bracket, 60 percent of people with smartphones have Snapchat downloaded to their devices. Daily, there are over three billion video views and 100 million active users on the app — numbers which are likely increasing as we speak.
With such a huge user base, it's important to have your Snapchat game on fleek at all times. But some strategies might be more obvious than others. Here are a few lesser-known features of the app that will instantly up your Snapchat game.
1. Longer Lines Of Text
Feeling creatively stunted by the text limit? Use this little trick to get a lot more typing space. If you have an iPhone, go to the native Notes app and open up a blank note. Hit enter a few times, and then copy all that blank space. Then, head over to Snapchat, tap your screen, and paste. All that copied blank space will appear as a text box, and you can type away to your heart's desire! You can even customize the text as usual, like so:
2. Video Chat With Your Friends
Very few people know that you can actually video chat with the app, thus making the "chat" part of its name even more accurate. When you go to the screen that shows you who you've sent snaps to and received snaps from, you can swipe a username right to chat with the person. If the person is online at the same time as you, a blue circle will appear on the bottom right by the "send a chat" box. If they're not online, this box will appear yellow. If you press and hold this box, the other user will see a little bubble appear on their screen that has your face in it. If they do the same, you both can video chat!
3. Find Hidden Colors
We've covered this feature before, but it's pretty neat, so it's worth another mention. If you're an iPhone user, the color palette offered on Snapchat does not include white, black, grey, or pink. To change that, tap the drawing tool and press down on the color ribbon Then, while still holding your finger on the screen, trace down to the bottom left or bottom right of the screen to get black. Move it up and down to select pink, grey, and white. It's super easy and could spruce up your snaps significantly!
4. Give Your Snaps A Custom Color Filter
Everyone knows that you can swipe right after you take a shot to get various filters on your snaps. There's black-and-white, a geo-tag, and one that makes you look tan, among others. But what if your skin looks more fabulous filtered through pink? Or gold? You can get essentially any color filter you want with the simple use of an emoji. For the one above, I took a heart emoji and used two fingers to expand its size, like so:
Make the emoji so large that it starts to get pixelated. If you do it just right and are able to cover your screen with a translucent pixel at the edge of your emoji, it makes for a lovely filter.
So now you know how to take your Snapchat game from "pretty good" to "basically professional." Go forth and conquer, young snappers.
Images: Mehak Anwar/Bustle (7)
