Snapchat has released a set of new AR elements in celebration of the Lunar New Year, which aims to educate users about Chinese culture and its influence, adding to the broader celebration of the event.
Snapping Tiger
The first Lens is a new AR experience that tells users the real-life story of Asian-American businesswoman Lucy Yu, owner of “Yu & Me Books” in New York. The bookshop is an independent store that’s dedicated to showcasing stories of underrepresented authors.
Snap explains:
“Lucy, an avid reader from an early age, started Yu & Me books in 2021 to help showcase stories from underrepresented authors. She believes that shared storytelling can drive meaningful change, and it’s her hope that Yu & Me, which focuses on books by immigrant authors, will serve as a space to celebrate underrepresented writers.”
To launch the effect, users need only scan the storefront of the Yu & Me bookshop using their ‘Snap Camera’. The AR experience uses animated visuals, akin to traditional Chinese watercolor art, to tell Lucy’s story in a way that depicts it as having been “engineered to replicate the gentle sway of a paper pop-up book”.
In addition, Snapchat will also be adding new Snap Map markers to key Chinatown businesses across Chinatowns in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens, helping inspire more discovery and engagement with local Chinese communities. It’s a good approach for Snap to share more diverse, cultural stories in its app, giving its Lunar New Year tools more meaning than just as mere celebratory elements, which is what the Lunar New Year is all about – more than the actual occasion is the awareness that there is something deeper rooted in its concept.
Lastly, Snap is also adding a new ‘Year of the Tiger Lens’, utilizing Sky segmentation technology to animate a watercolor Tiger jumping through the clouds. As a Lens effect, the scale of the visual really brings to life the colorful and awe-inspiring essence of Chinese belief, where Spirit animals often depict abstracts, such as values and emotions. It adds yet another engagement perspective in which Snap can draw in more users or at least reach new audiences that find better resonance with its new thematics.
The Wrap
It’s a rather interesting tie-in, with Snap being the first platform, among those that have already released their own Lunar updates, to use the Lunar New Year as an educational prompt, aiming to help people develop a deeper understanding of the impact of Chinese culture has had not only in America, but in the entire world. If you’ve not been interacting much with your local Chinese community, then these might just change that.
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Sources