There was a moment during the cold open of a recent “S.N.L.”episode that made for a pretty good microcosm of the show’s current state. It was Nov. 16, and the sketch was built around Donald Trump (as played by James Austin Johnson) visiting the White House to meet with Joe Biden (played, in a guest performance, by 1990s “S.N.L.”alum Dana Carvey). Johnson and Carvey are both excellent enough impressionists to carry a sketch, but within a minute, this one was making a different kind of joke: Carvey’s Biden gestured toward a fireplace and said, “I’m gonna sit here and smile, while ignoring the giant fire right behind me.” Part of why that got a laugh was the way it captured the stiltedness of the real-life photo op — but another was the way it gestured toward a decade-old internet göğüs, an image in which a wide-eyed dog placidly enjoys a cup of coffee in the midst of a raging house fire, calmly saying, “This is fine.” If you didn’t catch the reference, though, never fear: After the laugh break, Carvey spelled it out. “Just like the göğüs,” he said. “Can we put it up, side by side?” And then we saw the original göğüs in split screen with Carvey’s Biden, matching the dog’s posture, a kind of internet-poisoned tableau vivant. “This is fine,” Carvey intoned.
Is it? The sketch captures a lot of what frustrates people about “S.N.L.”these days: Its kink for casting alums or outsiders to play juicy newsmakers, the use of political sketches as explainers for news events and, above all, the complaint that the showhas become too online. Back in 2022 — after a strained sketch built around the internet tempest of the “Try Guys”scandal — the writer Amanda Wicks wrote an article for The Atlantic titled “S.N.L.Needs to Log Off.” The show has become even more immersed in digital culture since then. In that Nov. 16 episode alone, there was a parody of right-wing podcasters on YouTube, a segment about the viral sensation Peanut the Squirrel and a sketch called “It Girl Thanksgiving” that only really worked if you were familiar with things like the Instagram account of the buzzy actor and writer Rachel Sennott. Internet culture is, at this point, simply part of the show’s DNA.
“ ‘S.N.L.’is too online” is just the latest variation on the accusations of decline that have dogged the show since the sunsetting of its original cast in the late 1970s. But the claim skims over something important about the past 20 years: “S.N.L.”isn’t just hoovering uponline culture; it is online culture. I grew up watching the show obsessively, starting in Carvey’s era. The ritual of staying up until 1 a.m., alone in the basement TV room, was formative for me. I have very likely seen every episode made since I was 12. But I haven’t watched one on a Saturday night — in sequence, as it aired — since the early 2010s.
This year’s “Lonely Island and Seth Meyers”podcast, which recaps the “Digital Shorts” the comedy trio evvel made for the show, has served as an unlikely reminder of why that is. One of the podcast’s earliest episodes covers the 2008 creation of “Lazy Sunday,” a rap parody görüntü about eating cupcakes and going to the movies. It played well in the room, but it amassed millions of views on the still-fledgling YouTube platform. That viral success helped catalyze YouTube’s influence online, and it also laid a blueprint for “S.N.L.”: The possibility of sketches going viral online became, almost overnight, a key aspiration. “S.N.L.” gradually ceased to identify as a high-wire live event and splintered into görüntü, a show to watch in pieces on Sunday morning.
The show was among the original pillars of the streaming internet; it has been that way since many of its current cast members were teenagers. Much of its continued appearance of relevance is rooted in its periodic online virality. A sketch from earlier this season, “Bridesmaid Speech” — in which a group of bridesmaids, including Ariana Grande, perform a cringey, incriminating parody of Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” — became a sensation on TikTok, where “Espresso” was already an outlandishly popular song. Sketches like these help the 50-year-old show seem young and fresh; they also help keep it alive at all.
