Music is a means for bonding, and SNAPS Music Appreciation club can be a safe space for students who love music.
SNAPS meets weekly to appreciate music in each others’ company. They listen to members’ favorite albums and talk about life in general.
Tess Veung, vice president of the club and second-year sports and entertainment student, takes turns each week with other executive board members in presenting a “primary album”. After listening to this album, the first album of the night, Veung said the group then chooses a random member to play a secondary album.
Fourth-year psychology student Michael Daubler is a veteran member of SNAPS. He runs the club’s social media and holds the title: “Minister of Propaganda”.
“I've been in SNAPS so long that the fiber of my being is literally embedded into it,” Daubler said.
The last album Daubler picked was “The Quilt” by Gym Class Heroes. He said he tries to pick albums that are unlike what the club has listened to lately that fall within his own musical taste.
“My main area of knowledge is that kind of like, a wee bit of 90s hip hop,” Daubler said.
The members' music preferences might vary, but a passion for music is their common ground.
"Music has been like pretty big for most of my life," Veung said.
She said her love for music comes from her parents and the CDs they would listen to on road trips.
Music is not the only topic of conversation on the table in meetings.
“As the albums play, we'll kind of just socialize, have that in the background and talk about music, talk about other stuff, not even necessarily related to music, you know,” Draven Prior, a fourth-year geological sciences student, said.
Daubler said one of the club’s other primary interests is Marxism. The club has a special format night that highlights what Daubler calls their “Marxist Co-Op”.
“We'll do something like a Populist Pig Primary, where each of us execs will pick an album and put it up on our Instagram," he said.
Music sparks deeper conversations about the world and members’ lives.
“I feel like this is a good way to connect to the world and understand different perspectives,” Prior said.
Daubler said the club is comporable to a family that invites strangers from the grocery store to join them for Thanksgiving dinner — everyone fits in.
“I have been a member since I pretty much started out at USC,” Veung said. She recommends students join the club as a way to get out of their shells.
SNAPS is “accepting” and has a “very strong feeling of community," Prior said. He pointed out that SNAPS is diverse in the genres of music they listen to together.
“So if you're invested in music, and like to talk about it, there's almost definitely somebody there who likes a similar genre, and you can get along,” Prior said.
SNAPS meets every Wednesday at 8:30 p.m., either on Discord or in Petigru 217. To stay updated with meetings and the SNAPS happenings, follow them on Instagram @SnapsAtUSC. To see their curated playlists as well as a master-playlist of the albums they listen to in meetings, check out their Spotify, SNAPS Music Appreciation.