Snapchat has been a very popular app among teens for years, and recently they announced and released a new subscription. The subscription, called Snapchat +, was launched in mid-July and gives users many new features. None of the features drastically changed the app, however some of these new features can be seen as violations of users’ privacy. Overall, the subscription isn’t worth it.

Snapchat + is a new subscription that costs $3.99 a month that is meant to test new features before being released to everyone. These features include new themes and other customizations, seeing your friends’ locations from the last 24 hours, seeing how many times your story has been watched, pinning someone as your “best friend”, and seeing where you are on others’ best friends lists. Some of these features aren’t very useful and some may be invasive.

Your location, in particular, is a private thing that you may not want others to know. Having your location be public to those with the subscription could possibly put you in danger. Senior Ramey Bailey has the subscription. She thinks a feature, called Ghost Trails, is “stalkerish”. 

“I think a lot of people aren’t even aware that people who have Snapchat + can see everywhere they’ve been in a day,” Bailey said. “It’s a little over the top.”

Ghost Trails makes your location accessible at all times to people who have the subscription. If you don’t have the subscription, you may not even know that people can see the places you’ve been in the last 24 hours. This may make some people uncomfortable. Junior Graham Sherman thinks that this feature is very invasive.

“I don’t like knowing that if other people have the trial they can see wherever I go,” Sherman said. “It’s just weird.”

The subscription does come with some great features, like the best friends list feature and customizing your app. Bailey uses the best friends list feature the most. 

“It shows you a planet in the solar system,” Bailey said. “Whichever planet you are is where you are on their best friends list.”

There’s eight planets and eight people on your best friends list. Wherever your planet is in the solar system is where you are on their list. This feature is nice because you can see if people you have on your list have you on theirs. Even though someone isn’t on your best friends list, you could still be on theirs. It all depends on the ratio of how much each person snaps, which makes this feature even more interesting. 

“I just think it’s interesting,” Bailey said. “I like to see who has me on theirs because the ratio is different.”

The customization feature is liked as well. This feature lets you change the color of the app on your home screen or theme of the app overall. This lets you make the app more your own. Sherman uses this feature and the best friends list feature the most.

“I liked that you could change the color of the app,” Sherman said. “I made mine pink.”

Although some features are liked, others aren’t very useful. People with the subscription often don’t use features, like seeing how many times people have rewatched your stories or pinning someone as your #1 best friend, as often. Bailey doesn’t like the rewatch feature and doesn’t think it’s useful.

“It’ll show you how many times your stories have been rewatched, but it won’t tell you who’s rewatched them.” Bailey said. 

Paying every month to use less than half of the features isn’t very beneficial. For example, Sherman only uses a few of the features and doesn’t think the subscription added too much to the app.

“I honestly didn’t feel like it really changed that much,” Sherman said.

Considering the privacy issue with Ghost Trails and the other features not being that useful, paying for the subscription isn’t worth it. Sherman just got the one week free trial and didn’t want the subscription after.

“I wouldn’t pay for it,” Sherman said. “Nothing was really interesting about it to me.”

Snapchat + doesn’t provide that many benefits for a user, despite adding several privacy invasions. The features aren’t that impressive or useful, and they aren’t worth spending money on.