TikTok produces overnight fame, and Snapchat offers overnight riches “On Snapchat, you’re almost anonymous,” Babaknia said, explaining that the platform, despite the cash, doesn’t raise a creator’s profile. Snap might be the cash cow, but the downside is its lack of cultural relevance. Still, he acknowledged that the chances of becoming a viral phenomenon are slim on both platforms. He’s chasing both while working part time as an AT&T salesman, but the monetary success from Snapchat feels tangible. The way Babaknia sees it, TikTok produces overnight fame, and Snapchat offers overnight riches. For some, that reduces Spotlight to a hollow endeavor, despite the potential to earn from the pool of cash. Fame, it seems, is not a viable currency on the app unless the user is already internet famous. Babaknia has 45,000 followers on TikTok (after months of consistent posting) but has less than 1,000 followers on Instagram and YouTube and about 5,000 on Snapchat. While TikTok’s biggest names are booking The Tonight Show and Superbowl commercials, there is no such thing as a Snap star - and no way to become one. The lack of faith, he theorized, stems from people’s general disregard of Snapchat as a viable platform. “I’ve told my real-life friends how much I’ve made off of Spotlight, and they either don’t believe me or they’ll only post a couple of videos and give up entirely.”
(Vox was not able to independently verify the exact amount Babaknia has made from his Snapchat activity.) “It’s insane,” he told me. He guessed the clip earned him at least $15,000. In March, he posted an old clip of his friends standing in a parking lot with the caption: “we just drove five hours to the closest in-n-out.” The video pans from the fast food store to one of his buddies who deadpans, “I think I’m just gonna get a water,” and Babaknia bursts out laughing. Since January, he says he has earned more than $100,000 from a handful of viral videos, some pulled directly from his Memories archive. It was a rare opportunity for Babaknia, who has hopes of becoming a full-time content creator, to earn money. The company distributed up to $1 million a day to users with the most popular Spotlight videos. That changed last November when Snapchat launched Spotlight, a TikTok-like short video feature, and established an initiative that paid users to post. He never thought they would be viewed by anyone or worth anything. Since high school, the 24-year-old has stored thousands of random, short clips under his Memories tab. Caren Babaknia has a lot of silly videos saved on Snapchat.
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