Fleek - Snapchat's Morally Depraved Cousin
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| gmufourthestate.com |
Snapchat's overwhelming success is difficult to understate. While 20 and 30 somethings scroll through their Facebook feeds and fiddle around with Instagram filters, Snapchat reigns supreme among the younger generation. If you need more evidence of this, just look at the amount of campus-specific apps that have been crafted in its image. Rapid, ephemeral messaging has a lot of scope for silliness, young people like being silly.
When university rolls around, that silliness tends to get a bit more x-rated, something which Snapchat sadly doesn't condone. That's where Fleek comes in, the new app which purports itself to be the more hardcore alternative, specifically designed for campus hijinks. In case you hadn't figured it out already, most of said hijinks involve nudity, indecency, booze, drugs, or some combination of all 4.
I decided the easiest way to investigate was to download the app myself and have a look through. The first thing it asked me to do was pick a college, I opted for Florida State because according to what I'd read it has one of the worst reputations of any learning establishment in America for this kind of thing. After cycling through a few story feeds I found that a great deal of the content was actually fairly innocent, but every now and again you'd get someone showing off their new bong, posing with a pill between their teeth, flashing, or doing some other things which I won't even attempt to describe.
Largely though, it seems like the appeal comes from being able to post lewd material, not just doing it all the time. It kind of reminds me of the Grand Theft Auto game series (you'll have to bear with me on this) - when they started coming out, the biggest controversy was the fact that you could hire prostitutes, only to kill them immediately afterwards to get your money back. The thing is, despite the blustering of out-of-touch politicians and PC warriors, almost nobody who played the game actually ever did that, but it was comforting to know that the extra layer of unpleasantness was there, even if you never indulged.
In the same way, you could post explicit, horrifying material on Fleek, or you could just use it like Snapchat, secure in the knowledge that if you did cross that boundary, it wouldn't be problem. I imagine if you spent long enough trawling you'd find some really alarming material, but I have neither the patience nor the wherewithal to do so, just don't be surprised if 'Fleek scandal' stories start cropping up from time to time in the near future.
Callum is a film school graduate who is now making a name for himself as a journalist and content writer. His vices include flat whites and 90s hip-hop. Follow him @CallumAtSMF
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Fleek - Snapchat's Morally Depraved Cousin
Reviewed by Unknown
on
Friday, February 05, 2016
Rating:
Reviewed by Unknown
on
Friday, February 05, 2016
Rating:
Unknown
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