Snapchat brings photo-vandalism to the outside world

As if superimposing bunny ears on a selfie wasn’t awesome enough, now you can befoul your every photo with digital detritus.

You will find no greater fans of smartphone-based frivolity than the Telecoms.com team. Barely a day goes by without the ecstatic discovery of a new quirky ringtone or a montage of undignified cats or an app that lets us point and laugh at strangers. All of these paled into insignificance, however, on the magical day we first encountered Snapchat lenses.

Now, just when we were starting to restore some semblance of productivity, Snapchat has gone and thrown a spanner in the works by introducing World Lenses, which extend the lens functionality to the rear-facing camera. Now we can take photos of, quite literally, anything and improve it with stuff like cartoon rainbows and stylised commentary.

It surely can’t just be us that is sick of the baffling ambiguity presented by conventional photography. How many times have we all seen a picture and not known what to think about it? It’s frankly selfish and irresponsible for people to simply present unadorned images with no indication what the point of them is, as if that should be somehow self-explanatory.

Yes, via social media it’s possible to offer some kind of written guidance but this still runs the risk of the photo becoming uncoupled from the explanation, which is an unacceptable risk. Thanks to the tireless scientists at Snap Inc. we can now permanently augment images with graphics such as ‘OMG’ or sad rain clouds. There’s even the option of introducing select flora and fauna when nature has proven incapable of this simple task itself.

“We launched Lenses over a year ago as a whole new way to express ourselves on Snapchat,” said the announcement. Since then, we’ve become puppies, puked rainbows, face-swapped with our best friends — and begun to explore how Lenses can change the world around us. Today, we’re adding new ways to use Lenses. While Snapping with the rear-facing camera, simply tap the camera screen to find new Lenses that can paint the world around you with new 3D experiences!”

To further whet your appetite for this life-changing innovation watch the teaser video below. World Lenses will be available in a small number of countries to start with, but to augment the fun further Snapchat isn’t telling us which. We suggest constantly restarting the app until it turns up, then strap yourself in for the ride of your life.