A Teen Made $4 Million in Five Weeks on Snapchat, and How’s Your Life Going?

A Teen Made $4 Million in Five Weeks on Snapchat, and How’s Your Life Going?

Last year, Snapchat announced what sounded like a real-life Scrumdiddlyumptious bar scheme to lure TikTok users with promises of riches beyond their wildest dreams. The company announced that, in order to promote its TikTok clone Spotlight, it would pay out $US1 ($1.4) million total to creators, every day. The company provided scant additional details other than you must be 16 or older to qualify, rewards are based on a “proprietary formula” that equates engagement metrics to money, and the number of these beneficiaries would be “many.” Sounded like a scam to us, but it turns out we just didn’t believe hard enough: months later, Snapchat is paying out.

One 19-year-old young man has made three million dollars in five weeks, according to the New York Times.

His debut to fame: “a science experiment” with an exploding Coke bottle.

How does that make us feel? What does this kid have that we don’t? We must live with these questions now.

The Times has contacted several other creators who confirmed that they’ve now sitting on an embarrassment of riches. In just a few months, some Gen Z’ers and young Millennials have made between hundreds of thousands of dollars to over one million from their Spotlight videos. “I’m earning about 100,000 a week on average,” one 27-year-old education-focused Snapchatter told the Times. At least one is investing wisely in college tuition.

Though a Snapchat spokesperson said in an email to Gizmodo that the payouts will continue “for the foreseeable future,” this is obviously a multi-million-dollar horse race against TikTok, which will end.

In other words, DROP EVERYTHING, quit your job, and make a Snapchat account. Visit a local Dollar Store for a prop that best defines you — I claim balloons, I can work with that — and book appointments for a chemical peel and CoolSculpting. Consult a local teen about what teens are up to. Ask your friend to be your mum when Snapchat calls. If it worked for a few random teens out of Snapchat’s 249 million users, why wouldn’t it work for, specifically, you?

Better yet, if you have a teen of your own, put that kid to work.


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