Comedy Central is hitting Snapchat with its first scripted original series: “Get Money,” a mock how-to explaining how to make it in the gig economy.
The timing is less than ideal. Numerous “gig economy” workers across sectors have been hard hit by the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, so the humor may fall flat. That said, “Get Money” doesn’t make fun of freelancers or the gig economy per se: The central joke is that the clueless millennial main character has no business teaching anyone anything.
From Comedy Central’s description of the series: “Hanna’s making part-time side hustles her full-time profession — from selling her exes’ clothes to selling her soul — and teaching us how to minimize efforts and maximize pay for an ideal work-life balance.”
In any event, the eight-episode “Get Money” is slated to launch March 20 on Snapchat. The series stars Hanna Dickinson, one of the first members of Comedy Central’s Creators Program, which launched two years ago. The ViacomCBS-owned cabler hired Dickinson as a full time in-house writer and her videos have generated over 29 million views across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram since June 2018. Her best-performing video to date: a “Mini-Mocks” episode titled “PornHub Caption Writer.”
“Comedy Central is known for introducing the best young comedic talent to the world and we think Snapchat is the perfect platform for Hanna Dickinson, a breakout member of our first Digital Creators Program,” said Steve Elliott, VP of original digital development for Comedy Central.
Comedy Central and Snap have lined up EA’s “The Sims 4” video game as the series sponsor.
Snap hit 218 million daily active users at the end of 2019, and the company claims daily time spent viewing original shows tripled last year. CEO Evan Spiegel told investors that more than half of the U.S. Gen Z population has watched one of Snapchat’s original shows.
Snap originals, from a range of production companies and studio partners, include “Good Luck America,” “Endless Summer,” “Driven,” “Mind Yourself,” “While Black with MK Asante,” “The Dead Girls Detective Agency” and “Tekashi69 vs. the World.”