Sartre on Snapchat
What would the French philosopher think about the (sn)app?
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Sartre’s version of existentialism is broadly dependent on the idea that existence precedes essence.
Transposed to the level of the individual: for us to find meaning in our lives, we must first accept that there is no meaning to our lives.
In this way, it could be argued that Sartre would be very much pro-Snapchat.
Snapchat on it’s own seems like a meaningless activity.
Taking ephemeral photos and adding bizarre filters as a form of attention-deficited communication between friends, seems on the surface entirely pointless. The literal definition of a waste of time.
But dig deeper and we can see a hidden value, and therefore meaning, to the whole process.
Trust-building
Snapchat is the first of many social media platforms to make a big deal out of looking stupid.
Okay so lots of the filters are poised to “splendify” the subject, but so too are there filters that make you look old, or like a sausage or whatever else (can you tell I deleted Snapchat about 6 months ago after a lack of use?).
To participate in this social media game requires an ability to poke fun at oneself or at least not take oneself entirely seriously, in the way that, say Instagram, implores its users to.
And so Snapchatting requires a level of trust and bond between participants that goes someway towards cementing actual, real-life bonds.
It has no inherent meaning, but by participating, Snapchatters are creating meaning — to secure and improve friendships, to appear vulnerable, to err, to be human.
Of course none of this is a conscious effort on the part of the users, but instead an unconscious modern version of self-expression and affirmation in the same way dancing, singing, painting or anything else similar has been over the centuries.
It provides many of the same benefits as these activities.
Impermanency
The clever facet of Snapchat that other social networks not only lack, but actively reject, is the transience of a moment.
Snaps last only seconds and then are gone (of course they can be screenshotted, but this kind of goes against the spirit of it, and in fact there are whole internal ethical principles between users for when this is permissible, if at all) and this more than anything else is what allows the form to have meaning.
Were it not for this temporariness, users would be less inclined to make themselves vulnerable with silly poses and odd filters.
Without that, Snapchat has no meaning. It’s just another photo sharing app.
With it, it becomes essential.
Snapchat as an art form
Snapchat may not be art. But in another sense, perhaps it is. It allows users to capture the essence of their existence for one fleeting moment, and then bend it to their will, add their own flourishes and perceptions.
That sounds a lot like art to me.
Art brings meaning to our lives in ways that numbers and facts cannot, and so in many ways, Snapchat, like art, is the perfect expression of what Sartre described as humans having to be the sole legislator of their values and meaning.
Now, this assigns no moral element to it.
Should we really be spending our time Snapchatting? Is Snapchatting a good?
These are questions to which existentialism would simply dismiss — that so long as Snapchatting existed as a mechanism for creation of meaning, there is no reason for it not to exist.
According to Sartre, we should not judge or question others’ moral choices. So for him, those who choose to Snapchat are free to do so.
That is unless it becomes part of a dogma, which he believes limits human freedom.
So if it becomes integral to a facet of existence in some way; that you MUST Snapchat, it is no longer good.
Many would argue that another social network, at least used to better surmise this position — Facebook. You were a social pariah if you weren’t on Facebook.
Therefore, the overall conclusion we can draw from all of this is: Sartre would be cool with Snapchat, but probably hate Facebook.
And you know what, I can’t blame him for that, really.
This is part of a series — Philosophy for the Instagram Generation — that tries to answer all sorts of important questions related to how famous philosophers would perceive our modern world.
