【Engsub Archives】

The Engsub Archivespremiere of Snap's newest brainchild, an absurdist Saturday morning-style cartoon called Bitmoji TV, started out like any other. Popcorn, wine, and red armchairs abounded in a Soho House screening room high above LA's Sunset Boulevard.

But things devolved devilishly from there.

"We're all gonna have our own experience," Ba Blackstock, Bitmoji's co-founder, said. "But we're all gonna have it together."

---

You May Also Like

---

---

The premiere would be low-tech, somewhat awkward, and deeply ironic: We would watch the show in a fancy Hollywood room all together, but each watch it individually on our personal smartphones while wearing headphones.

Bitmoji TV, which debuts Saturday in the Discover section, is based on the premise that every episode simulates the experience of flipping channels while watching Saturday morning cartoons. But your Bitmoji, and the Bitmoji of the last friend you snapped with, are the characters in all of the imagined shows and ads. That means that every Snapchat user is watching the same cartoon episode, but the characters are personalized to them — so no one's show looks the same as someone else's.

At the screening Thursday, Snap premiered the first three episodes for press.

Via Giphy

After Snap executives filtered in alongside teenage influencers wearing sweatpants and tiny backpacks, Blackstock took the stage. He gave a deranged but sentimental powerpoint presentation on how the project was a "preposterous odyssey" 25 years in the making. It was the only time the screen would be used (during the presentation, Blackstock said, "We're celebrating the death of television.").

Mashable Light Speed Want more out-of-this world tech, space and science stories? Sign up for Mashable's weekly Light Speed newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up!

Next, Blackstock and Snap personnel made sure everyone had Snapchat and their Bitmoji characters dressed and at the ready; Bitmoji is integrated in Snapchat, so you can design your avatar within the app, where it shows up in multiple forms of media.

We were then directed to the headphones slung over the back of our chairs, making sure we all had the appropriate dongles to connect.

"I have to warn you, this is an extremely experimental form of media, which is why it's an extremely experimental screening," Blackstock said before we began.

After scanning an access code and being warned profuselyby Blackstock to not touch our screens once the show started lest we got out of sync, we began a countdown, guided by an old timey, black and white countdown clock on the screen.

Five, four, three, two, one... showtime.

The experience that followed was as silly as the show itself. We sat wearing headphones and staring at our smartphones with the same-but-different shows all playing before us. Laughter would erupt in cascades, with some getting the joke a few seconds behind or ahead of others. Blackstock referred to the spectacle as a "silent disco screening," which was accurate.

It was weird, but it worked. Every once in a while, I glanced over at my date's screen, where I saw him watching the same part of the show, but flipped from mine: His Bitmoji was the protagonist and mine the supporting character. At the conclusion of every episode, we clapped, while Snap personnel gestured to us with large hand circles to keep going. At the end, we all took off our headphones and emerged back into the physical realm.

"This show is basically the future eating the past," Blackstock sarcastically remarked, dead-pan.

A joke, sure. Or was it..?

Topics Snapchat Social Media

• Shopping
• Tech
• Entertainment
• Science
• Social Good
• Deals
• Digital Culture
• Games

• Julian Assange and the Banality of Access
• Force Multiplier
• The Limits of Rights
• NYT mini crossword answers for May 31, 2025
• The Midterms and the Turn Leftward
• Quid Game
• Invisible Crisis
• The End of Aid
• General McMaster and the Miniskirts
• Sinner vs. Rublev 2025 livestream: Watch French Open for free

• Scientists just excavated an unprecedented specimen from Antarctica
• Hands on with Moment's Battery Photo Case for iPhone 7 and 7 Plus
• Google Maps adds new shortcuts to anticipate your every need
• This audio feedback vest makes music hum and VR come alive
• Sir David Attenborough is very stoked to get a new snail named after him
• The 10 moments Snapchat wishes would disappear from its history
• Under Armour CEO endorses Trump, Twitter users endorse shopping elsewhere
• Super Bowl LI was a bad moment for VR
• Hacked Amazon Dash Button sends $5 to the ACLU whenever life demands it
• Score some social media likes and faves with this new Tom Brady GIF

• A March For the Marchers
• A Ceasefire Is Not Enough
• John Jeremiah Sullivan Wins Prize, Does Paris Review Proud by Lorin Stein
• Hello, Brave New World
• Is Anyone Relating?
• If You Should Fall
• 5 planets will light the sky in rare astronomical event this week
• “Lit It Crowd” Lousy with Parisians by Lorin Stein
• News From Nowhere Episode 11
• A Big Week! by Thessaly La Force

• Feminists of the Basque Country
• Her Voice in My Head by Emma Forrest
• Territorial Pissing
• Kafka in Kurdish
• Attorney-Tyrant Privilege
• The Barbarians Are Coming Today
• Truth Is Never Finished
• Abundance Mindset
• No News Is Good News
• Learning to Listen