Terrifying Tweens

I went to see a movie yesterday with a bunch of cousins and young family friends. When these kids were not busy watching the movie or talking to others, all they did with their phones was sending snaps and watching musically videos. And, they were ridiculously fast. Their thumb movements drove me nuts. I couldn’t believe how fast they sent five snaps to their friends in a couple seconds, hit the home button twice and switched over to musically to watch music videos. That’s all they did. it was a vicious cycle. “Text me” and “Add me on Facebook” has become “snap me” and “add me on Snapchat”

While I know this isn’t someone new, I hadn’t noticed anything like this before last night.

A 14 year old had no shame watching those musically videos with sound in public. Two other kids hadn’t heard of musically. That was surprising to me. What was even more surprising and amazing was how the 14 year old sold those two kids on musically and got them to download it in less than 2 minutes. Her excitement got them excited. It was crazy. I bet no professional salesman could have pulled off what that kid did. It would be cool if these new networks could just hire some power users to become their official evangelists.

Musically is currently blowing up. Jury is still out on whether its main app and its new live streaming app will meet Meerkat’s fate soon. If it sustains its growth, I have a feeling that it will have a fate similar to Periscope’s.