Snapchat users can now sing, dance, or photograph their way to five seconds of Snapchat fame. Snapchat Challenges use custom Lenses to challenge users in their snaps, with the best earning a spot inside the challenge’s Story.
The recently launched feature uses custom Lenses to challenge users to complete a particular task on camera (or capture something else with the Snapchat camera). For example, a Snapchat-created challenge asks users to lip-sync to Gwen Stefani’s Jingle Bells. Another challenge uses a Lens to take two images of the same scene in a way that will allow a single object to disappear from the image.
Users can then share the resulting challenge snap, with some of those snaps being featured in a story for that challenge. The resulting videos can also be shared privately with other Snapchat friends instead.
While the Jingle Bells challenge was created by Snapchat itself, the new challenges can be generated inside the Lens Studio, which means the platform is inviting users to create their own challenges. Once created, the challenges are available from the Lens Explorer inside the app, a new section of the app that launched this summer.
Snapchat told Deadline that the feature is designed to “inspired creativity, self-expression, and community for Snapchatters and Lens Creators alike.” Along with being tied to the imagination of creators using Lens Studio, the challenges are also expected to be tied to holidays and other events, like that Jingle Bells challenge.
The new challenge feature carries a similar thread as the games inside the platform’s camera, which users can play with their facial expressions and other types of movements. Snappables, launched earlier this spring, was the first interactive use of the company’s popular augmented lenses inside the social network. This year, Snapchat also launched virtual sets for its original shows, while the app is rumored to be developing a portrait mode for the Snap camera.
The update comes as Snapchat struggles to grow its user base outside the teenagers and young adults most drawn to the platform. The redesign that Snapchat hoped would draw in new users was highly criticized and stock prices have dropped.
