This brief article presents the everyday cultural use of the Snapchat instant messaging application for video chats as an exemplary case of the challenges confronting studies of cinematics in an epoch marked by the rise in network societies of ubiquitous mobile and social media and technics. It proffers and begins to detail the argument that snap video chats cannot be denigrated as mere ‘shorts’ but must be approached as spatiotemporally and experientally complex.