It is finally happening, one of the most anticipated Snapchat events. Starting from February 2020, there will be a global release, and your customizable Bitmoji avatar is finally going to become the main character of a full-motion cartoon series called simply Bitmoji TV. What does this mean, well for anyone following the current Snapchat upgrades this will represent a very advanced evolution of Bitmojis, well beyond the chat stickers and comic strip-style Stories. The options are limitless, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

We wanted to know what makes the Bitmoji TV project so important is the fact that it is going to help Snapchat differentiate from the plethora of short-form video platforms out there. This is an option to create original in-house shows for their Discover section that can’t be copied. The additional perk that comes along with this launch is that it could mean a boost for Discover, making it more accessible and user-friendly, something most users are eager to have.

Now, let’s get down to what Bitmoji TV is actually going to offer its users. Well, first of all, your avatar and those of your friends will appear in regularly scheduled adventures ranging from playing the crew of Star Trek-inspired spaceships to being secret agents to falling in love with robots or becoming zombies You can check the Snapchat’s trailer for this and see what they have come up with so far. The official release date is February 2020. Until then, users can subscribe to Bitmoji TV, so it shows up prominently on their Discover page, or they can simply turn on notifications about its new content.

The old and the new

When we look at what has happened in the past in the battle of social media for predominance, the situation is clear. Facebook and Instagram have done their homework and very freely copied Snapchats' main features, thus slowing the progress of this company. However, when it comes to Bitmoji they are still far behind. Facebook has announced the creations of Avatars for Messenger, but so far, it is still under development, and this means that it will take them quite some time to catch up Snapchat when these features are concerned.

Don’t be surprised by the “TV” part in the name. It is for all intents and purposes a return to Bitmoji’s roots. A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, the Bitstrips startup originally offered an app for customizing the face, hair, clothes, and more of your avatar and then creating comic strips for them to appear in. When Snapchat acquired Bitstrips waaaaay back in 2016 for only $64.2 million, the standalone Bitmoji app blew up as soon as you could get avatars as chat stickers. It had more than 330 million downloads as of April, according to Sensor Tower, despite Snapchat now letting you create your avatar in its main app.

It is important to keep in mind that one of the main Snapchat’s most ingenious innovations was the beloved Bitmoji Stories — the ancestor to Bitmoji TV. As you know, these daily stories allow you to control frame-by-frame through short comic strip-style interactions starring your avatar. You could see, from time to time, some rudimentary animation, but most frames were still images with text bubbles. With the way things are right now, Bitmoji could once again pave the way, instead of just being a communication tool. So, they might want to ensure that they are using its full potential. This is one of the reasons 2019 has brought so many changes with Bitmoji becoming irreplaceable amongst teens and Snapchat’s 210 million daily users.

The sky is the limit

The fact of the matter is, Snapchat needs to build a longer-form experience with the avatars at the center in order to really take advantage of Bitmoji’s unprecedented popularity. Thus far, stickers and stories, along with the games, were entertaining, but they were definitely not considered a must-see content. With Bitmoji TV, Snapchat might have actually found a way to inspire its users to drag their friends into the app. The reason for this is quite simple, and everyone now sees their own Bitmoji as the leading character, this means that the cartoons could be more compelling than the ones with impersonal characters that can be found elsewhere.

So, the bottom line is that Bitmoji TV has a chance to offer video that’s entertaining and amusing, but also one that is currently out of reach for competitors who don’t have a scaled avatar platform of their own. Very similarly to the launch of Snapchat Cameos that happened just recently, Snapchat has figured out that the most addictive experiences center on its users’ own faces. Snapchat turned the selfie into the future of communication. Bitmoji TV could make an animated recreation of your selfie into the future of content.