I quit. It took strength, but I quit. And with solidarity, you, and anyone you know, can too quit Snapchat.
I was first introduced to Snapchat when I was maybe 13-14 years old? It wasn't meant to be anything serious, they said. Just a couple snaps here and there, digging into my precious mobile data - sure, I knew it was a bit annoying at the time, but I didn't think it would turn into... what it did.
Fast forward to fairly recently; I'd gotten caught up in 'casual' snapping, a trend of sorts, where you just send selfies to your mates at any time of the day, with little expectation or pressure. And I had a bad habit of leaving people on read, registering the photos they sent me in some hidden part of my brain... and just turning my phone back onto standby. Eventually, this led to a couple of friends getting slightly annoyed with me, and so I pledged to be better at replying. Note that before this time, I compulsively responded to any and all messages incredibly quickly, if not instantly - some of my friends will know this more than others.
I snapped away for about a month with floor pics, face pics, meaningless pavement and shoe, tongue-out selfies, my mate Elijah's wrist, you name it. And eventually, responding to messages stopped becoming such an issue to me; besides, it was such a chore to constantly monitor other people's arbitrary responses to my own, even if a 'streak' was a fun little hobby. I had become so bad at responding, even on other social media sites, that I would often go hours off-grid - to the detriment of my social situation.
Day by day, my relationships broke down. "You can't be here," became a common reaction to my presence, and by the end of January, nobody wanted to be associated with me; even my own teachers. My grades were even docked at one point due to my apparent lack of communication. I even got in trouble with the law after leaving my own terminally ill Grandmother on delivered for 14 days after 'pinkie promising' to reply. I was a wreck. This would have been preventable by simply not engaging with Snapchat. I had no way out; or so I thought.
I've recently discovered BetterKelp, and if you're in a situation similar to mine, there is help available with BetterKelp, a free online therapy site and the sponsor of this blog post. You deserve to feel validated, safe, and happy in yourself, and with my promo-code TSZSIMON, you can access one free month of therapy help, as well as 75K gems ,1M free gold, and a 6kg box of kelp for the first 10 people to sign up with the promo-code TSZSIMON. Thanks for the message BetterKelp, and onto the rest of the post.
After the death of my Grandmother, I sank deeper and deeper into despair - the only thing that kept me going was the fear of existential obliteration at any moment, and BetterKelp's incredible therapy kelp. Over time, the consumption of kelp and the eternal fury against the cruelty of the cold universe - the universe does not weep when the sun sets, after all - lifted me into a better spot. I started eating things other than kelp laced with 1-(n-ethylenediacetylene)monobromo-1,2-diioic acid (a well known antidepressant in the kelp community). I deleted Snapchat from my phone, pledged only to use WeChat, and I've never been happier since. Thank you, Betterkelp, and I'll see you all next week for the next episode of "why do I exist?"
All content within this post is purely fictional. No sponsorships or monetary interactions have taken place between any therapy company and The Simon Zone (unfortunately) and any similarities in name, likeness, or characteristics to any real life business entity are purely coincidental.
