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Space, Ephemerality, and Identity on Snapchat

Ashley Hamouda

Old Dominion University

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Introduction

Snapchat is a smartphone application, released in 2013, that allows users to send

temporary pictures, videos, and messages to others within the app. It is revolutionary because of

the ephemeral nature of the content; snaps—information sent via the app—only have a life of up

to 24 hours. In an age where digital identity curation has become a necessary part of life for most

people, temporal social media is revolutionary in that it relieves the work of long term identity

maintenance and invites different ways of communicating.

Users can send images, videos of up to 10 seconds, and text messages through the app, all

of which are not able to be viewed again after being opened by the recipient. This content is

usually not sent without extra adornment; there is often accompanying information to situate the

visuals within a local or personalized context. The content ability of snaps has evolved greatly

since the app’s inception. Initially, Snapchat only allowed visuals to be modified by one line (or

31 characters) of text and/or user doodles. Currently, emojis, face-morphing Lenses, and Filters

can also be applied. Filters require user location to be enabled and can change the coloring of the

image or display the current date, time, or weather. Location filters are also available, which

users can apply to snap creations if users are within a GPS area predefined by Snapchat’s

administrators. Location filters are user-submitted and approved by Snapchat administrators, and

are created for areas or events.

There are a few different potential audiences for snaps. They can be sent directly to

individual users, added to a private Story available to only friends, or potentially added to public

Stories available to a wide audience. The audience for public Stories varies; some large cities,

such as New York or D.C., feature daily public Stories, available for only those within the area

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to view and submit content. Other Stories, such as those for events or for featured cities, are

available national or global audiences. The essential element of public Stories is that they are

location-based; only users within the predetermined locations can submit content, and, in some

cases, only users within a certain location can view the content. The focus of this paper will be

public snapchat Stories, and the way that they interact with and are derived from physical spaces.

While identifying with a location is not new to social media, Snapchat is significant

because it is the common ground on which users stand in order to identify themselves. Jenkins,

Ford, and Green (2013) state of content on social media: “if it doesn’t spread, it’s dead” (p. 1)

and clarify that “spreadability assumes a world where mass content is continually repositioned as

it enters different niche communities” (p. 27). This is not true of Snapchat, where the

user-generated content is meant to be the opposite of “mass”; extreme individualization and

subjective perspectives are encouraged. User-created content is not able to be remixed and

recontextualized because saving and re-sharing information is not encouraged via the app’s

structure. The unifying force that connects discrete users is space, whereas traditional platforms

such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram encourage users to gather around ideas. Instagram and

Twitter employ the use of hashtags, which create temporary spaces for users to participate in

conversations about current events. Facebook prompts “What’s on your mind?” in the status

creation box, inviting users to share their thoughts. Snapchat stories, on the other hand, provide a

single public narrative that depends on contributions from users local to certain spaces.

This paper will examine how identity on Snapchat is constructed through space, and vice

versa, in a postmodern context. On Snapchat public Stories, sociolocative broadcasting takes

place in an ephemeral setting, creating a temporary digital layer over physical spaces. In order to

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demonstrate this phenomena, first I will lay the theoretical groundwork of digital postmodern

identity and ephemeral spaces and how it relates to and is affected by space construction. Then, I

will provide an overview of how Snapchat user identities function in comparison to curation on

traditional social media sites, drawing from Bernie Hogan’s (2010) framework of exhibitions

versus performances. Next, I will discuss the communication implications of location-based,

temporal digital identities, and speculate about the affordances and limitations on the type of

information sharing and socializing that take place on public Stories. Finally, I will conclude

with suggestions for future research directions.

Theoretical Background

An overview of the literature on ephemeral data and postmodern spaces will follow.

Snapchat will be examined in terms of how ephemeral data interacts with postmodern spaces.

The overall result is that users negotiate their identities in reference to the digital layer that they

help create over a physical space, and the spaces created recursively construct the identities of

the users.

Ephemeral data

The rhetorical implications of Snapchat’s temporality can be understood through the

lense of Hogan (2010), who supplements Erving Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical identity theory

with exhibitionism. He argues that Goffman’s theory must be expanded to be applicable to

digital identities because performance is ephemeral, while digital identities tend to be curated.

Therefore, a more appropriate metaphor for social media would be that of a museum: “a site

(typically online) where people submit reproducible artifacts (read: data). These artifacts are held

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in storehouses (databases). Curators (algorithms designed by site maintainers) selectively bring

artifacts out of storage for particular audiences” (Hogan, 2010, p. 381). Traditional social media

sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are exhibitions because data is stored by default,

and must be maintained by the user, either by displaying, deleting, or altering privacy settings.

Snapchat, per Hogan’s ephemerality definition, falls on the dramaturgical end of the spectrum.

There is still a level of curation, however, which is why I refer to it as a “spectrum;” users must

negotiate audiences for each snap, and choose a combination of snaps that display narratives,

which require curation for up to 24 hours.

Xu et al. (2016) discuss the impact of ephemeral data as opposed to curated data. They

point out that more permanent exhibition (such as on Facebook) can have serious social

consequences for users by displaying identities that are not in line with current day. They argue

that “forgetting” is an essential human function that should not be excluded from technology

design (Xu et al., 2016, p. 1). Four themes emerged from their study regarding the effects of

ephemerality of Snapchat: “the presence of more intimate networks; the prevalence of mundane

communication with those close contacts; the reduction in self-consciousness in such

communication; and the negotiation around saving what is normally ephemeral content” (p. 3).

Essentially, more authentic, spontaneous communication occurs on Snapchat because of the

pressure for curation was relieved.

Much of the research surrounding Snapchat focuses on snaps sent interpersonally rather

than displayed as Stories. Utz et al. (2015) show that because of the private, intimate nature of

exchanging snaps, Snapchat elicits more jealousy among romantic partners than Facebook,

where people share data within plain sight. David (2015) examined the interpersonal exchange of

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snaps amongst a friend group of teenage girls, and emphasized that snaps serve as “phatic

expressions”: they are shared to perform a social bonding task rather than to share information.

Clark (2016) concludes that Snapchat, as compared to other social media platforms, may be

better for encouraging civic engagement because the highly personal appeals that Snapchat

affords may encourage those who are unsure about participating to join in on civic activities,

such as protesting, if they see their peers doing so.

In the aforementioned research, the focus is on interpersonal snaps and the Story feature

is excluded from consideration. By considering how space and geotagging—the features

essential to Snapchat Story functionality—play a role in Snapchat identities, this paper’s

perspective will contribute to existing scholarship on Snapchat and ephemeral data in general. As

the research has shown, the temporal nature of the data encourages a more intimate, less serious

type of information sharing than traditional social medias. Because content disappears so

quickly, because the Stories are comprised of fragmented moments of someone’s life, and

because public Stories are a culmination of many different perspectives, user identity

construction on Snapchat can best be understood through a postmodern lens.

Postmodern Spaces

Abrudan (2011) discusses the fragmented nature of postmodern identity. She argues that

modern-day identity is closely tied to images produced through mass media. Because identity is

unstable, people must constantly reconstruct themselves, and because mass media images are

recognizable and readily available, identities are “constructed exclusively by simulating the

materials offered by the media” (Abrudan, 2011, p. 25). Jenkins, Ford, and Green (2013) also

note “audiences often use the commodified and monetized content of commercial producers as

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raw material for their social interactions with each other” (p. ). Snapchat does not generally fall

in line with the typical observations on Web 2.0 mass-mediated content because the nature of

Snapchat’s content is so highly personalized; unlike other social media sites where reconstructed

and recontextualized information such as memes and reaction pictures or GIFs dominate,

Snapchat artifacts are largely selfies and in-the-moment visuals. Mass media identity

construction is replaced with identity construction that finds common ground in spatial relations.

Abrudan’s point about the constant reconstruction of highly fragmented identities is applicable to

Snapchat, and geotagging may be that common ground that Abrudan says is necessary for rapid

identity reconstruction. Rather than identifying with mass media images, users who geotag their

snaps are identifying with and through the space around them.

Modesti (2008) explicitly makes the connection between postmodernism and space in her

analysis of tattoo parlors. She says that a “series of perpetual ‘presents’... constitutes postmodern

temporality” (p. 201). She notes that as life is mediated through images, the nature of time and

space is fragmented into the moment that is captured within those images. She emphasizes that

postmodern thinking rejects an “ultimate truth” (p. 210) which is in line with Snapchat’s

narratives as comprised of multiple users from multiple physical and cultural perspectives aiding

in the construction of a space. Multiple symbols, and multiple perspectives on symbol

interpretations, are incorporated into Snapchat stories.

Dickinson (2002), whom Modesti (2008) cites as one of the basises for her discussion on

the materiality of spaces, argues that identity is closely related to the rhetorical materiality of

everyday life. The power of “banal” spaces, such as coffee shops, is that they seem unconscious

and uncrafted, unlike overtly symbolic spaces such as museums and memorials. He says that

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“our collective and individual subjectivities are always at stake, and they are always at stake

even in, perhaps especially in, the mundane and banal practices of the everyday” (Dickinson,

2002, p. 6). This power of “banality” aligns well with Snapchat, which, as outlined earlier,

encourages users to share everyday moments. In terms of Dickinson, the seemingly

unconstructed-ness of the spaces on Snapchat adds to its rhetorical power, and may be the best

digital tool for presenting “individual subjectivities.”

Related to subjective spaces, geotagging is examined by Humphreys & Liao (2011)

through the lense of Lefebvre’s social production of space theory, which “suggests three notions

of space: spatial practice, representations of space, and representational space” (p. 409).

Geotagging, they argue, adds a socially-constructed digital layer to the physical world, allowing

users to create their own new, hybrid space. Humphreys & Liao performed a case study of an

app that uses geotagging to allow users to leave digital “sticky notes” for their friends. It showed

two trends: it was used in “communication about place” (providing information to others about a

space) and “communication through place” (constructing an identity through associations with

space) (Humphreys & Liao, 2010, p. 412). As applied to Snapchat public Stories, users submit

Stories of their personal experiences (“communication through place”), and add to the Story that

creates an overall identity for the space (“communication about place”). While Dickinson and

Modesti theorized about physical spaces, Humphreys & Liao justify thinking of Snapchat as a

digital supplement to the physical world.

Erickson (2010) also discusses the layering of digital space over physical space. She

coins the term “sociolocative broadcasting,” which is when social media and geotagging are

combined (p. 387). She makes the analogy to a documentarian, where users who geotag are

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creating documentaries of their local space; thus the users are also the creators. While her

analysis predates Snapchat and assumes a more permanent nature of the documentaries, which

are built over time by many people, her terminology and theoretical grounding can be applied to

Snapchat Stories if we consider them as micro-documentaries; as previously mentioned, there is

still an element of permanence, thus curation, since the Stories are available for 24 hours.

I have contextualized Snapchat within the theoretical frameworks of ephemeral data and

postmodern spaces. The result is a temporary digital layering of user-imposed meaning upon a

physical space, which recursively constructs the identities of users who associate themselves

with the space via geotagging. Next, the framework will be applied to Snapchat Stories to show

how the features of the app work in practice.

Snapchat Stories: Sociolocative Broadcasting in Postmodern Spaces

When participating in Snapchat Stories via sociolocative broadcasting, users both

construct the space around them and construct themselves around the space. They construct the

space by adding their facial expressions (via selfies), narration, captions, or even just displaying

a certain subjective view of the space around them. Users are constructed by the space because

Snapchat Stories are meant to feature the setting around the user, as emphasized by the geotag

feature. The snaps chosen to be included on Stories heavily emphasize the surrounding location,

as the purpose is to provide insight the surrounding event or space. Identity formation is a

recursive process in the Snapchat Story scenario; the users contribute to how their space is

perceived by Story audiences, and in turn, associate themselves with the space that they helped

construct. One example is the Spring Break 2016 snapchat story that was available the second

week of March 2016. Users who were located in areas such as Cancun and South Padre Island

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were able to contribute to the story. It showed images of mostly white college-aged men and

women engaging in drinking, dancing, and general fun bordering on recklessness. These users

created an image of what they believed spring break should look like. Anyone who used spring

break filters on Snapchat would therefore be associating themselves with the narrative of the

public story, regardless of if the user was participating in the same activities, and regardless of if

the Snap was sent publically or privately. To use the same filter as the one displayed prominently

in the Spring Break 2016 Story is to create a subtextual association with that space.

Filters are essential to mediating the construction of both space and identity. Filters can

indicate place (city or event name), time (time or date stamp), and/or condition (temperature); the

common denominator is that the filter denotes information about that particular space in that

particular moment. Rettberg (2014) discusses how filters offer a way for us to see ourselves: “it

gives the image that strangeness that defamiliarizes our lives. The filter makes it clear that the

image is not entirely ours. The filtered image shows us ourselves, or our surroundings, with a

machine’s vision” (p. 26). Filters transform the mundane into something significant. To apply a

filter is to ostentatiously prescribe a perspective to it. A video of a woman dancing in a crowd

with “Coachella” superimposed across the bottom gives context and directed meaning, rather

than the same video of a woman dancing without indicating the space. Likewise, the fact that all

users in the same space have access to the same set of filters is also significant because it creates

unity out of the culmination of scattered perspectives. As Rettberg says, the significance of

defamiliarization through filters is that “we see ourselves and our surroundings as if we are

outside of ourselves” (p. 27). Users on Snapchat public Stories are part of a larger, collective

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narrative of their space, outside of their subjective perspectives, which creates a sense of

community.

It is important to keep in mind that the spaces constructed via the combination of public

narratives and informational filters are ephemeral. While the emphasis on previous Snapchat

research has been on the exchange of private messages, I maintain that the conclusions about the

nature of snaps remains largely unchanged between public and private. As other scholars have

noted, Snapchat’s impermanent nature encourages a more intimate, everyday look into users’

lives than more permanent social media (Charteris et al., 2014; Clark, 2016; David, 2015; Utz,

2015; Xu et al., 2016). There are many other apps and social medias that allow users to

contribute to the construction of a location, event, or space, however it is within the constraints

of curated data. Information shared on sites such as Yelp, Foursquare, and Twitter lack the

spontaneity of Snapchat because users must be more reserved in what they share, as it will be

associated with their names for months or years to come. Snapchat spaces provide a feeling of

authenticity to their audiences because the information requires less premeditation on the user’s

end, and thus feels more authentic on the viewer’s end. For example, this was evident in the

Oscars coverage on Snapchat, where a backstage insider’s perspective was offered. While

Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram emphasized the polished red carpet looks, Snapchat featured

selfies and silly narrations from celebrities, media hosts, and non-celebrity attendees alike. This

was a prime example of a multi-perspective narrative that equalized perspectives, creating a

perspective on the Oscars space where celebrities were not idealized, but instead were just as

relatable as the average person who appeared after them in the narrative lineup.

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As mentioned above, the content shared in Stories are “phatic expressions” as defined by

David (2015). When users contribute to a Story, they are not necessarily doing so for

informational purposes, but rather to perform social bonding with the community in both the

digital and physical spaces around them. For local Stories, the local users are both the target

audience and the contributors. In the daily New York City Story, for example, New Yorkers are

sharing their everyday experiences around the community. For public national or international

Stories, the content contributors form a collective community in a physical space to display for

both insiders and outsiders. Following Humphreys & Liao (2011) and Erickson (2010),

perspectives in snap content are digitally layered over the physical space. The result is a new

hybrid space that contributes to a socially-constructed, local community atmosphere.

Important for equalized perspectives and community atmosphere is the fact that access is

only limited by location; anyone with the Snapchat app can contribute to the local Stories, as

long as they fall within the defined location. However, there is an extra, less-evident barrier to

participation: public Snapchat Stories are quietly moderated by individuals who work for

Snapchat, and therefore space and identity construction is complicated by the company’s

discretion. While anyone can submit, being featured in a Story is not a sure thing. While the

rhetorical effect of multiple perspectives in a singular narrative seems to be one of equalizing,

certain users and certain perspectives may be championed over others.

In this section, the theoretical framework of ephemeral data and postmodern identity was

applied to Snapchat Stories, with examples. The communicative implications of these public

Stories will be discussed in the next section, with consideration of the affordances and

limitations of Snapchat.

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Implications

Snapchat offers an example of how identity is constructed with ephemeral data in the

context of postmodern spaces. This approach offers many new affordances for digital identities

in the form of less curation, more attention, and localization. However, there are limitations to

consider as well in the form of gatekeepers and privacy.

Affordances

The popularity of Snapchat may be a reaction from a user base who are weary of the

over-curation of more permanent online identities. Social media has been present long enough

for users to see the consequences of long-term, curated data. For example, in 2015, Jeb Bush’s

Chief Technology Officer, Ethan Czahor, resigned within days of his appointment as the media

uncovered incendiary tweets from 2009-2011 (Kaczynski, 2015). Time ran an article declaring

“Old Tweets Prove Dangerous for 2016 Campaign Staffers” in which they discussed cases

similar to Czahor’s, interestingly blaming those in charge of hiring for believing that “senior

hires didn’t need to be vetted” (Miller, 2015, para. 8). The media and public did not forgive the

fact that in some instances the tweets were half a decade old, treating the opinions from years

ago as though they were tweeted that day. It may be useful to think of sharing on social media in

this way in terms of Foucoult’s (1979) panopticon, where the information that people share is

ever-public, where users are policed by each other, and where online behavior can face

disciplinary consequences. While ephemeral sharing would not fully resolve these issues, it

would certainly mitigate the disciplinary effects users have seen when their present day identities

are at odds with their past digital selves.

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danah boyd (2014) points out that part of the appeal of Snapchat is attention, which is

related to the ephemeral nature of the data. She says that, “in a digital world where everyone’s

flicking through headshots, images, and text without processing any of it, Snapchat asks you to

stand still and pay attention to the gift that someone in your network just gave you” (boyd, 2014,

para 5). Because receivers only have limited opportunity to view the content, and because

senders are given a timestamp of when their content was viewed, snaps demand more focused

attention. The ephemerality makes content feel more special than that of curated data, which

typically can be accessed again at any time. This undivided attention is key to the feelings of

intimacy that other scholars have noted on Snapchat. It encourages a much more active social

media viewer; boyd (2014) goes as far as to say that it “fundamentally question[s] the default

logic of social media” (para. 7).

Finally, similar to boyd’s observations, Snapchat offers a local feel in a globalized world.

In the early techno-utopic days of internet scholarship, the fact that people could communicate

with others across the world was hailed as a huge development in communication. For example,

McLuhan & Powers (1989) coined the term “global village,” envisioning greatly extended social

spheres afforded by a digital environment. However, that expansion of communication

opportunity has proved difficult to navigate; Romero et al. (2011) discuss user passivity, in

which the huge influx of information encourages users to only navigate, rather than participate.

Hampton et al. (2011) show that physical “place” is still a major factor for fostering active social

networks. We have not formed the intimate, limitless connections some scholars predicted, and

Snapchat’s emphasis on local, physical spaces make it a good starting ground for fostering more

digital connections.

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Digital layering has great potential to be used to encourage more social connections. Xu

et al. (2016) speculate on the potential for ephemeral data to be used to create networks or

connections to networks based on “location, times, or events” (p. 10). While Snapchat currently

creates a publicly viewable story based on these criteria, the app does not necessarily connect the

users, who are discreet, anonymous contributors. Users could be connected similar to the way

that Twitter or Instagram create temporary communities through searchable language, as

discussed by Zappavigna (2011). She says that language is built through communities, and

hashtags are a way of employing searchable language across contexts so that anyone with

interest in an event, location, et cetera can locate and take part in a temporary, digital

community. This concept could be extended to geotagging, perhaps encouraging a location or

event-based communication exclusive to the users present. The connectivity could even

encourage non-digital connections. Safety would be a necessary design consideration in this

instance, and Snapchat could follow the lead of apps such as Tinder and Uber, where digital

users make new, in-person connections.

Limitations

While any user can submit a snap to a Snapchat Story, gatekeepers are in control of

which snaps actually appear on a Story. This is problematic for many reasons, first of which is

that they are anonymous faces who have ultimate control over how Stories are shaped. While

Snapchat does state on its website that they are responsible for curation, it is not immediately

evident. Viewers are not made aware of the curation process of Stories; content submitters are

only told that their snap “may” be published. I was not able to find a set of values, guidelines, or

criteria that detail which snaps are accepted. The issue of data gatekeepers severely complicates

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the potential for space identity construction, because it is not an authentic, unfiltered

representation of what users are submitting. As Robert Gehl (2014) notes, archives are

constructed power/knowledge from datasets; authorities “construct ‘facts’ from the fragments

that sit on the archive’s shelf” (p. 66). Social media platforms are not democratic spaces because

the companies have the power to structure users’ information as they see fit. While gatekeeping

is a problem in terms of an authority impeding or modifying user identity, Massanari (2015)

points out its necessary function. On reddit, moderators and voting algorithms keep the content

manageable and high quality (Massanari, 2015, p. 8-9). While a top-down approach to Snapchat

Story gatekeeping is problematic, there is potential for more democratic options, or, at the very

least, more visibility on the guidelines for snaps that gatekeepers include.

While gaining visibility to the public is at issue, control over what information is saved is

also of concern. Snapchat’s design encourages ephemerality, but the app does not guarantee it.

Senders are able to see when their snap is viewed and who it was viewed by, regardless if it was

sent privately or publically. If snaps are replayed (private receivers may replay a snap once) or

saved via screenshotting by other users, the sender will receive a notification. Data can still be

saved without the user’s consent, through methods such as third party applications, manipulating

the internet connection while screenshotting, or simply taking a picture of the phone screen with

another camera. There have also been questions of if Snapchat itself saves data on its servers

(Shontell, 2013). Privacy may be even more consequential to Snapchat than traditional social

media sites. With curated social media such as Facebook, it is evident that data is being stored in

databases. It is less evident with Snapchat, whose entire premise is that the user’s data

disappears. As discussed, users choose different content to share based on this assumption, so a

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breach of privacy would be a much more serious matter than on sites where less privacy is

expected. While Snapchat claims that they do not save privately-sent messages, outside sources

suggest otherwise (Shontell, 2013). Their Privacy Agreement is also not clear on the issue,

refusing to confirm or deny to what extent information is saved. While this is less of an issue

with publically-shared Stories, users must always keep in mind that while the premise of the

application is temporality, screenshotting, data hacks, and third-party data-saving apps allow for

the very real possibility of a snap re-emerging online years later.

The communicative affordances and limitations of Snapchat have been identified in

reference to the theoretical framework that was applied to Stories. Next, I will conclude with a

summary of this discussion and two areas of future research directions.

Conclusion

This paper has shown how space is central to identity construction in the ephemeral

context of Snapchat content. In digital environment where mass media images are not able to be

shared, space is a common ground for identification. Users digitally layer meaning over a

physical space by contributing their perspectives to public stories, creating a narrative that

anyone within that space can identify with via geotagging filters.

Ephemeral data in social networking is still a relatively new concept, and its potentials

and limitations have not yet been fully explored. The rhetorical implications of ephemeral data

should be a central part of future social media research. Digital archiving has reached the

technological potential to save almost anything posted through the internet; future issues will

revolve around the level of control users have over what data is saved (Hassinoff, 2015).

Snapchat offers a model of ephemeral data that does not exclude permanence from design, but

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allows users the knowledge of who accesses and saves their data. While I have shown that

privacy is still an issue with the app, it still affords more information than traditional curated

social media platforms.

Physical spaces should also continue to be a major consideration of digital networks. As

social media companies look to encourage more out-of-network connections, and users look to

connect to those with similar interests, location should be taken into consideration as a potential

way to encourage and expand relationships. Communities are created linguistically, as discussed

by Zappavigna (2011), but spatial relations have been shown to be highly relevant to

constructing identities and fostering a feeling of community (Hampton, 2011).

Ephemeral design opens up a wide range of communicative possibilities. Not only are

users freed from the work of permanent, curated data, but they can also potentially be freed from

the consequences. Identity is further destabilized, allowing for digital “forgetting” (Xu et al.,

2016). Our past selves need not be and should not be ever-present; throughout our lives we

identify with different spaces and times, which are themselves socially constructed and dynamic.

Ephemeral data leaves room for these spaces.

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