Life

You Can Now Add GIFs To Your Snapchats & Here’s How

by Brittany Bennett
Carl Court/Getty Images News/Getty Images

This is a Snapchat update we can all, unanimously get behind. After the social media platform introduced a major design overhaul in early February, Snapchat is introducing smaller updates to further streamline users' experiences — and this most recent one is exceptionally easy to use. And fun. Which will hopefully sweeten your liking to the new and improved Snapchat, if you're still bitter. If you want to know how to use GIF stickers on Snapchat, take a deep breath. The hard part of adapting to the ~new~ Snapchat is over and this is simple to comprehend.

Receiving a snap from a friend with straight forward text narrating a captured moment can be good ~enough~. But, a snap dazzled with filters and colors teeters on being considered a form of art. With the addition of GIF stickers, your art can become multi-media, adding layers of accessories and messages. Highlight the hilarity of a situation with GIFs that express something more than colorful, bold words can say. This new feature is thanks to a partnership between Snapchat and GIPHY, so you know the GIFs are bound to be good.

Snapping a birthday message to your bestie? Decorate it with flaming candles and glowing cupcakes. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a GIF might be worth two thousand. So speak up with layers upon layers of attention grabbing GIF stickers, now readily available in an easy to use library on Snapchat.

Take A Picture or Video

Snapchat

First thing first. Whip out your camera, open your Snapchat app and take a picture or video. Whether you're having a bad hair day that's worth self deprecation for the sake of comedic content or a hair flipping, worthy of a glam selfie kind of day, you'll accentuate the ~vibe~ with GIFs. Capturing gold through your camera is always step number one. From there, tap the "sticker" icon in the top right corner of the screen to be taken to a library of GIFs.

Select Your GIF

Snapchat

A Snapchat spokesperson advises us for this next step, "tap into Search (in the Sticker Picker) to see a list of Stickers under the GIPHY header, animated Stickers created by Team Snapchat or search for something specific." You'll have ~options~ to go with. Just specify what exactly you're looking for and be taken away with everything that is available to select. Choose wisely. But also, don't worry if the GIF you've selected doesn't fit perfectly.

Delete A GIF

Snapchat

If you're not exactly ~feeling~ the GIF you've selected once it's pasted on your picture or video, no worries. The beauty of digital art is that mistakes can be deleted without eraser marks. There will be no trail of your design hiccup. To quickly dispose of the faux pas, tap on the sticker, holding it down and move it to the trash. Then head back to the "Sticker Picker" to refresh with a new GIF. (Because what's a Snap without a GIF now?!)

Scale Your GIFs

Snapchat

Excited you're hanging out with a giraffe? Illustrate the emotion with a textured snap of GIFs, big and small. Thanks to this new update you can also scale your GIFs to fit them all on a screen. A Snapchat spokesperson shared a hot, pro-tip with Bustle, advising, "adding an Animated Sticker or GIF to your video Snap? Press and hold on the Sticker to pin it to something in the Snap! The Stickers will move, rotate, and scale with whatever you pinned it to!" There's no limit to how many GIFs you can use in a single snap. So go ahead and fit as many as you deem appropriate.

There are so many ways to express creativity through this new Snapchat update. Now, a video or picture is a canvas and the Sticker Picker is your toolbox for creating ~art~.