If your immediate reaction to all things Snapchat is, “Who gives a shit?”, you’re probably not a teenager any longer. But 2019 is. So we’re playing along.Now that we’ve crawled out of one hell-hole of a year and crash landed into another, we’re gearing up for all the new shizz 2019 has in store for us. We’ve gotten over our obsession with ’80s throwback fashion, ‘don’t say it’ memes, and the plastic straw ban of 2018.The privacy-invading, instant photo-sharing service aka Snapchat, meanwhile is alive and kicking with the Gen Z crowd, with their own version of what’s going to go down in 2019. Based on user insights over the last few months, here’s what the streak-savvy social media app thinks is going to be big this year. But will it be lost in translation in India? We ran them by the desi Gen Z to find out.The Airpod Apocalypse
Buh-bye Bluetooth handsets and hello Airpods, the Apple wireless earphones that were created to make you feel richer than the rest. Snapchat predicts that Airpods will rule 2019. It’s a legit enough style statement—if by style you mean status—so some of us might actually be comfortable giving up diamond earrings for these white blobs. Long live capitalism.“I sometimes wear my airpods around and don’t even play music, just so people can see me wearing them,” says 19-year-old Rishabh.Another Influencer Era
Turns out, the content-creating cyborgs that once created and are now enabling FOMO by making pretty packages out of prettier pictures are still calling the shots. There’s no escaping influencers on our Instagram feeds and Youtube subscription lists, luring you into their online world of dirty desires and dirtier jokes. Snapchat predicts that OG Youtuber Shane Dawson will continue his cyber reign, but we’re thinking it may be takeover time for kids like highest-earning Youtuber Ryan ToyReviews and India’s youngest Instagram celebrity Ali_OneWay.“Watching stuff on Youtube is fun, but what are these influencers actually even influencing?” is a sentiment shared by 18-year old Sharmaine.New Year, New Meme
Memes have replaced conversation through 2018, and it looks like they’ll still be conversation starters, middlers and enders through 2019. Gen Z is going to continue calling out past mistakes in the new year with our fave series, “You had one job”, while the personification of a dying, overworked mind, “My last brain cell”, already has us in splits.“Memes have basically become my primary mode of communication, but I’m still very particular they don’t become too normie,” says 21-year-old Anuj.Slang Dunk
If you thought things couldn’t get weirder after people said shit like, “Feeling cute, might delete later” and used words like ‘Thicc’, ‘Attacc’ and ‘Snacc’’, making ‘K’ sound like Shakespeare in comparison, then you need to seriously prepare yourself for 2019’s dictionary. According to Snapchat’s report, we’re going from Y2K to YKTV real quick. An abbreviation for ‘You Know The Vibes’ to acknowledge the fact that the feeling’s more mutual than Facebook friends, YKTV is projected to be the hottest new slang, specifically to describe dating, followed by “On A Date, Kinda Nervous”, also just an ironic way of saying you’re spending some much-needed solo time. There’s also ‘Born Day’, the new ‘cool kid’ slang to replace ‘Happy Birthday’.Except, 21-year-old Sakshi seems to think that, “Nobody says shit like that; shut up already.”Also, “I think slang is pretty region-specific, so you can’t really say what the next catchy phrase or word will be,” says 20-year-old Anushka.Follow Shamani Joshi on Twitter.
Advertisement
Buh-bye Bluetooth handsets and hello Airpods, the Apple wireless earphones that were created to make you feel richer than the rest. Snapchat predicts that Airpods will rule 2019. It’s a legit enough style statement—if by style you mean status—so some of us might actually be comfortable giving up diamond earrings for these white blobs. Long live capitalism.“I sometimes wear my airpods around and don’t even play music, just so people can see me wearing them,” says 19-year-old Rishabh.Another Influencer Era
Turns out, the content-creating cyborgs that once created and are now enabling FOMO by making pretty packages out of prettier pictures are still calling the shots. There’s no escaping influencers on our Instagram feeds and Youtube subscription lists, luring you into their online world of dirty desires and dirtier jokes. Snapchat predicts that OG Youtuber Shane Dawson will continue his cyber reign, but we’re thinking it may be takeover time for kids like highest-earning Youtuber Ryan ToyReviews and India’s youngest Instagram celebrity Ali_OneWay.
Advertisement
Memes have replaced conversation through 2018, and it looks like they’ll still be conversation starters, middlers and enders through 2019. Gen Z is going to continue calling out past mistakes in the new year with our fave series, “You had one job”, while the personification of a dying, overworked mind, “My last brain cell”, already has us in splits.“Memes have basically become my primary mode of communication, but I’m still very particular they don’t become too normie,” says 21-year-old Anuj.Slang Dunk
If you thought things couldn’t get weirder after people said shit like, “Feeling cute, might delete later” and used words like ‘Thicc’, ‘Attacc’ and ‘Snacc’’, making ‘K’ sound like Shakespeare in comparison, then you need to seriously prepare yourself for 2019’s dictionary. According to Snapchat’s report, we’re going from Y2K to YKTV real quick. An abbreviation for ‘You Know The Vibes’ to acknowledge the fact that the feeling’s more mutual than Facebook friends, YKTV is projected to be the hottest new slang, specifically to describe dating, followed by “On A Date, Kinda Nervous”, also just an ironic way of saying you’re spending some much-needed solo time. There’s also ‘Born Day’, the new ‘cool kid’ slang to replace ‘Happy Birthday’.Except, 21-year-old Sakshi seems to think that, “Nobody says shit like that; shut up already.”Also, “I think slang is pretty region-specific, so you can’t really say what the next catchy phrase or word will be,” says 20-year-old Anushka.Follow Shamani Joshi on Twitter.