With over 1 million followers on TikTok and with each of her videos amassing an average of 100,000 views, Olivia Snake is a True Crime entertainer that has captured everyone’s attention. 

From shocking crimes, serial killer idiosyncrasies, urban legends and hauntings, her vast wealth of knowledge pertaining to all things shocking and mysterious has made her a rising star in the TikTok creator world. 

In this week’s episode of the L.A. Weekly Weekly Podcast, Olivia Snake chats with host and publisher Brian Calle about what it takes to become a content creator, and if knowing all these scary facts ever keeps her up at night.  

“Probably like a lot of people, when the pandemic first started and we were going on lockdown, I just downloaded TikTok. I didn’t really know what it was about. I heard it was very entertaining and I got, of course, addicted to it,” Olivia explains. “You know when you watch something and you think ‘I can do that’ and then like more, ‘why don’t I do that? Why don’t I just start posting?’ So of course I did, and those are all very cringe-worthy, my first posts, I don’t really look at those often. I started to think about what I really like in my own life, what I am watching, and how that can transfer over to a short video format.”

“I listen to true crime podcasts. I of course watch Forensic Files – I’ve always been really interested in the genre – so I started condensing down the cases into 60 seconds and it took off from there,” she continues.   

While it’s difficult for her to decide which cases to post, she narrows it down to which stories can be done the most justice within the minute allotment allowed by the platform. 

“There are some really fascinating cases out there that just don’t come across in a 60-second format,” she tells Brian. “You have to find the cases [that do work] and almost pick out bullet points from them … [like] what makes this so impactful that people are really going to connect with it?”

She talks about the fine line of using True Crime for entertainment, and the importance of giving a voice to the victims without glorifying their killers. 

“You can try to do justice for the victims and keep telling their stories, because they were people that had lives. You don’t know what could have become of them had they not been taken away in these really horrific ways,” says Olivia. “So I think it’s just finding that balance between them … you don’t want to make it all about the violence or all about this horrific ending.” 

After spending five minutes on her channel, we are already hooked. To learn more listen to the podcast here: Spotify, Apple Podcasts or at Cumulus Los Angeles.

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