Snapchat’s Second Act: How the Underdog Is Minting New Creators — and Real Money
Inside the training, monetization and discovery engine that powered one up-and-comer to make $1M in five weeks
This is a preview of Like & Subscribe, my standalone Ankler Media newsletter on the creator economy. I gathered top creator economy execs’ predictions for 2026, wrote about all the deals and moves that made 2025 the year of the creator and scooped Netflix’s podcast deal with iHeartMedia. I’m natalie@theankler.com
Hello and happy 2026! Today I’ve got a story for you about Snapchat, a platform I didn’t cover much in 2025 but that has been making some serious moves to gain new relevance among creators — not just by going after the big stars (welcome back, King Kylie) but also by building a rep as a platform where fresh talent can attract audiences and get discovered.
But first, I celebrated the new year in traditional fashion by jetting off to Las Vegas on Monday to moderate a panel about how FAST channels (like the ones I wrote about last year) are shaping the next generation of television, part of Samsung’s multi-day The First Look showcase at CES. The panelists — Samsung’s Salek Brodsky, NBCUniversal’s Bruce Casino and Smosh’s Alessandra Catanese — came armed with many useful insights about how they’re leveraging FAST (that’s free ad-supported streaming television) to extract more value from programming of all kinds.
Here are three big takeaways:
Interactivity is on the rise: Samsung TV Plus saw an 11 percent engagement rate when it introduced an interactive fan vote component to its live streams of last year’s Jonas Brothers tour, a number that Samsung TV Plus GM Brodsky says “flabbergasted” him. He plans to invest more aggressively in interactive and live content that fosters “a sense of community.”
Hits are hits on any platform: No surprise, Law & Order is one of NBCUniversal’s top three FAST channels, and the venerable drama’s performance in that environment isn’t hurting its SVOD numbers. “When we have the same show on multiple platforms, we’re not seeing a lot of cannibalization,” says Casino, NBCU EVP of sales and distribution who’s now exploring bringing current hits (and, he teases, potentially some late night formats) to FAST services like Samsung TV Plus.
FAST is premium: Smosh sought out a FAST partner as it began transitioning its content to 4K, ultimately settling on Samsung TV Plus. Smosh CEO Catanese says being adjacent to premium programming on that service “matures our brand and our content” and helps the company position itself not just as a bunch of YouTubers but “a premium comedy brand.”
While many of the tech powerhouses are exhibiting at CES, Spotify is counterprogramming this week with a series of podcast events here in Los Angeles pegged to Sunday’s Golden Globes, which will include the first-ever best podcast award (I wrote about some big questions around this award last fall). I attended a creator brunch at the company’s new West Hollywood hub (the new home for all The Ringer podcasts and more) and on Thursday Spotify will host a party for Globes nominees. At a press briefing yesterday, the company unveiled an expansion of its partner program, which pays podcasters a share of advertising revenue as well as a portion of subscription revenue tied to engagement metrics. I’ll have a full dispatch for you next week.
Now, on to my look at what’s shaking at Snapchat these days. After years as a place for messaging your friends, consuming content from major media organizations like NBC News or watching Kylie Jenner do her makeup, Snapchat is reinventing itself as a platform for homegrown talent. CAA agent Avi Wasserman, who works with top creators like Amelia Dimoldenberg, even calls the app a “secret weapon to find the next generation of digital stars.”
Read on over at Like & Subscribe to find out how Snapchat, nearly 15 years after its launch, has finally established an innovative blueprint for making someone famous. From my conversations with exec Jim Shepherd, creator Katie Feeney and some of the platform’s newest rising stars, you’ll learn:
How Snapchat schools creators to build star profiles
The benefits of an “underdog mentality” as the company builds a more robust pipeline of homegrown talent
The key feature that changed Snapchat’s relationship with creators
How Feeney made $1 million in five weeks — and launched from the Snapchat screen to the gridiron sideline
The exact metrics creators need to get a share of revenue
CAA agent Wasserman’s take on Snapchat’s unique power for creators
How one lifestyle creator with a five-figure following earns thousands of dollars on her products from a single post (“literally saved our business”)
The rest of this column is for paid subscribers to Like & Subscribe, a standalone newsletter dedicated to the creator economy from Ankler Media. Click here or on the button below to access the full story.
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