Snapchat's first original web series debuts Saturday in Discover, with episodes available for 24 hours
Sasha Spielberg, Emily Goldwyn to Star in Snapchat Web Series (Exclusive) — Snapchat is making a web series. — Literally Can't Even comes from writers Sasha Spielberg and Emily Goldwyn …
Context & Ripple Effects
Days after Snapchat announced SnapperHero, its AT&T-sponsored series built on YouTube and Vine talent, the company is now premiering its first fully original web series, Literally Can't Even, written by and starring Sasha Spielberg and Emily Goldwyn. The difference is telling: where SnapperHero borrowed existing creators and a sponsor, this show is commissioned in-house and lives inside Discover.
First-order effects
- Sasha Spielberg and Emily Goldwyn gain a Discover-native distribution deal that puts their series in front of Snapchat's core audience without leaving the app.
- Discover shifts from an aggregation surface for media partners to a venue where Snapchat itself commissions and schedules programming, with each episode expiring after 24 hours.
Second-order effects
- The sponsor-funded structure proven by SnapperHero gives advertisers a template for backing short-form originals, while competing social platforms face pressure to commission comparable episodic content rather than just hosting it.
- If the format holds audience attention, Snapchat can convert one-off experiments into a slate — which is exactly the path the coverage later confirms.
Third-order effects
- Three years on, the experiment scales into Snap Originals' twelve daily scripted shows of four-to-five-minute episodes, and by 2019 sources report Snap paying $40K-$50K per episode for ten-to-twelve-episode runs — meaning ephemeral originals became a recurring programming budget line.
- The longer pattern points toward social platforms behaving like mini-studios: owning commissioning, scheduling, and talent relationships instead of renting reach to traditional media.
The trend: Social apps are evolving from content aggregators into commissioning studios for platform-native short-form series, with Snapchat's Discover slate as an early proof point.