Students snap their spirit with custom Geofilters

By Jordan Flusser ’19 and Caroline Quinn ’19

Spirit Week-themed Geofilters were the newest addition to this year’s weeklong event. The Geofilters, which are location based overlays users can add to their snaps, were a big hit and made an appearance on many students’ stories complementing their unique outfits for each day.

Many students responded positively and liked the school’s creative use of social media.

“The filters were cool and they were really easy to use because most people use Geofilters all the time already,” sophomore Christopher LaSusa said.

“I thought they were so fun,” junior Julia Reif said. “I don’t know how we didn’t think of this before this year.”

Student Council meets to brainstorm ideas on how to make the week’s events and activities better every year. With each day assigned to a different theme, the student council saw Spirit Week as a great way to try out creating these Snapchat Geofilters.

The idea came from two freshmen on Student Council; Mike Aktas and Emma Tartini, were given the task of designing the Geofilters and setting them up for the rest of the school.

“The price of an On-Demand Geofilter depends on where your Geofence is, how big it is and how long you want it to run,” according to Snapchat. The company has to approve the Geofilter before it goes live, and new filters are being added every day.

Each filter matched the theme of the day and color day included each grade’s symbol. The Geofilter included symbols for the movie “The Incredibles,” the television show “Friends,” McDonald’s and the cable network Disney Junior. Junior class president Chris Duthie also created a custom Geofilter for the Class of 2019 on color day.

Aktas and Tartini also took the initiative to create a Geofilter for the West Essex vs. Caldwell football game this fall, which generated 25,000 views and uses, according to Student Council adviser Ms. Mondadori-Llauget.

She says she hopes to see the use of Geofilters continue in order to promote school spirit throughout more special events.