We're launching a new blog called This Is New York, where we get a little more conversational. We hope you like it.
SnapChat has introduced a new feature called “NYC Live,” which enables users to submit their photos and videos to a city wide, real-time, curated collection of local sights and sounds.
NYC Live has inspired lots of Big Apple #fomo, but it also raised eyebrows after featuring footage from the scene of last week’s explosion in the East Village.
SnapChat has produced real-time video compilations around events such as the Oscars and the Super Bowl in the past, but despite the relevance of the explosion to many concerned New Yorkers, this kind of timely inclusion struck many as a departure from the otherwise upbeat content on NYC Live.
Why did #Snapchat have a live feed of a burning building in #NYC a couple of days ago? Am I the only one bothered by this?
— Jose Lopez-Vera (@jose_lopez_vera) March 28, 2015Users submit to NYC Live by using SnapChat to document a moment, adding commentary if they’re so inclined, and then including “Our NYC Story” among the list of accounts to whom their photo, video or compilation is sent.
The scenes that had made the cut soon after the project’s launch are rosy: they include city skylines and panoramas of New York tourist destinations, buskers and subway dancers and footage of pizza dough getting prepped.
The vast majority of commentary about NYC Live, which is visible to users around the country, comes from non-New Yorkers tweeting light-hearted pronouncements of envy, complete with apt use of New York-related Emoji icons.
The NYC Snapchat Story makes me want to live in New York City so bad
— Haleigh Hedrick (@hedrick_h) April 3, 2015The remarks about the explosion footage emerged at the same time as widespread criticism of individuals who took selfies at the explosion site, and on the heels of the viral response to a bloody SnapChat selfie taken by a victim of a shooting in Mesa, Arizona.
