Snapchat took a risk this weekend in the form of a Live Story — a Live Story with emotion.

And it worked.

Some background, for the “who cares about Snapchat?” crowd: Snapchat is a picture messaging app, famous for users’ ability to send vanishing photos — and, infamously, sexts that disappear within seconds, seemingly never sent. Snapchat Stories are snap narratives that last for 24 hours — a way to make those seemingly ephemeral snaps a little less ephemeral. A year ago, Snapchat launched Live Stories, which are collections of snaps that all users of Snapchat see. They feature strings of snaps from large events, like the Kentucky Derby, or stories about a day in an international city, including live snaps from Washington, D.C., Mumbai and Detroit, curated from snaps sent by users in that given location.

According to Re/code, Snapchat Live Stories net 20 million eyeballs in a mere 24 hours. (For comparison, that’s roughly the number of people who watch CBS’ NCIS — the most-watched TV drama in the entire world.)

Snapchat Live Stories run the gamut from “Look at these snaps from the Albuquerque Balloon Festival!” or “Look at these snaps from a day in Paris!” Some of the stories are sponsored — live from huge events like awards shows or music festivals. Others aren’t — they’re city stories that show how snappers live in other places, which the Snapchat Live Stories team curate as a surprise for app users.

But Snapchat has taken a more serious tone of late: serious as in sending snaps from the 2016 campaign trail, of course, but also more somber, such as collecting messages of “Je Suis Charlie” support around the January Paris terror attacks.

This weekend, Snapchat took an even bigger step, with something more serious and somber than either of those previous ventures: Snapchat created a “Charleston Strong” Live Story, with messages of love, support and grief from snappers in the Charleston area.

In the wake of last week’s shooting at the Emanuel AME church, the Live Story collected messages from outside the church and at the memorial service and stamped them with a special illustration of the iconic church tower.

Most Snapchat live stories begin with a video from a Snapchat user. (“This is Atlanta!” yelled one guy at the opening of this spring’s “Life in Atlanta” Live Story.) But the “Charleston Strong” Live Story instead opened with a hymn, “Amazing Grace,” and included several lines of text in an animated slide, giving background to Wednesday’s tragedy and explaining the news behind the snap story.

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The story wasn’t long. Many of Snapchat’s live stories run 200-plus seconds. But the “Charleston Strong” story featured fewer than 20 snaps overall — some from mourners speaking directly to the camera in selfie videos, others snapping scenes from outside the church, and even one carrying nine flowers for each of the victims.

“Snapchat live stories are about community storytelling,” said Snapchat spokeswoman Shannon Kelly. “This story had a really unique opportunity to showcase the Charleston community coming together and finding strength in each other.”

The story went live Friday night at 11 p.m. EST and lasted for a 24-hour period, vanishing Saturday night. The response online was largely positive; many snappers urged their friends and followers to watch the story throughout the weekend, describing how grateful they were to Snapchat for making the story, the filter and the tribute to victims and the city.

Maybe this marks a new era for Snapchat: a Snapchat that isn’t afraid to tell stories about painful, tragic events, even alongside stories from award shows and music festivals. Given the size and demographics of Snapchat’s audience — its users skew very young — that could be significant. Certainly snappers themselves think so.

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