We already knew Rand Paul was a fan of long form. Now he's taking a stab at a more phantasmal form of communication -- Snapchat.
The Republican U.S. Senator from Kentucky signed up for the popular yet somewhat controversial photo-sharing app, he announced in a Facebook post on Wednesday. Paul will send the first snap from his account, under the username "senatorrandpaul," on Wednesday evening.
Paul's first official post came a bit earlier, though. Upon adding him on Wednesday morning, we were able to view a six-second Snapchat story that was pushed out to his followers.
"Hey guys, thanks for following me on Snapchat. Look forward to seeing you soon," Paul says in the video.
In addition to compiling Snapchat stories in a 24-hour feed, the service allows users to send self-destructing pictures or short videos to one or more followers. The snaps appear on the recipients screen for between one and 10 seconds; the sender selects the length of the message before sending.
As you can see in the screenshot below, Paul eschewed Snapchat's creative doodling function for some straightforward textual annotation:
This isn't the first time Paul's communication methods have taken the spotlight. Last March, someone from Paul's staff used his Twitter account to live-tweet the senator's 13-hour filibuster on drones.
In addition, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow called Paul out in October for plagiarizing Wikipedia articles in his speeches.
Paul may be the highest-profile politician to join Snapchat to date, but many have already joked that it would have been a perfect fit for Anthony Weiner, whose political career unraveled in the wake of a sexting scandal.
As Snapchat rose to fame, it gained a reputation as a safer platform for sharing racy photos. In reality, Snapchat has a massive user base, who use it in a variety of ways; the company claims 400 million snaps have been sent. Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel recently even spurned a $3 billion acquisition offer from Facebook.
If Paul is any indicator, more Washington, D.C., politicians may attempt to leverage Snapchat's popularity. At the same time, Snapchat is trying to make inroads in the political sphere. The company recently hired lobbying firm Heather Podesta + Partners.
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