Since its creation in 1975, Saturday Night Live (SNL) has managed to capture the hearts of its viewers through its unique, comedic style. One of those hearts? Mine.
Now, I know what you’re thinking—how on earth can a 50-year-old show about old male comedians be relevant to a Gen-Z girl like me? (Yes, I realize you probably weren’t thinking that, but it would be crazy if you were, right?) Well, first off, SNL isn’t actually just questionable male comedians anymore. Its nature of showcasing up-and-coming comics means that the current cast is actually full of younger, more diverse people. But even apart from that, SNL has done a lot to keep up with current times.
One notable effort has been embracing short form clips of the show on social media. While TikTok has played a big part in this recently, it goes back way before that. When YouTube started in 2006, fans began posting ripped SNL clips to the site. Less than a month later, an SNL sketch went so viral on the site that it played a key role in the early rise of YouTube. The classic Lazy Sunday: hilarious to my millennial manager, not so much to me.
But still, even as humor changes, SNL continues to thrive online. In fact, the most recent season of SNL drew in 3.1 billion views on social media alone. A lot of SNL clips go so viral on social media, they become part of the scary world of brainrot. (For my millennial and upward readers: brainrot is “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state” especially as the result of overconsumption of online content that is unchallenging. Thanks, Oxford, for the fancy definition!)
And while a lot of us (myself included) try to block out embarrassing brainrot notions of the past, I took it upon myself to revisit some of the most viral SNL moments that made Gen-Z go crazy:
Recently, one of the most viral characters is heartthrob Domingo, played by even more heartthrob-y Marcello Hernandez. The story of Domingo has been built over multiple sketch as he parodies popular songs such as “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter and “HOT TO GO!” by Chappell Roan. It’s roped in celebrities such as Ariana Grande, Charli XCX, and Sabrina Carpenter into guest-starring, where they all do their best to purposefully sing poorly (an aspect that is comedic in its own right). He even had a special appearance at a Sabrina Carpenter concert, where he got arrested for being “too hot,” and I mean… can we blame Sabrina?
One sketch that may not sound popular to you at first (but trust me, it is) is “Cut For Time: Alan.” Never heard of it? That’s honestly not that surprising, it wasn’t the biggest success when it first came out. (Another thing YouTube has allowed for: uploading sketches that never made it to air.) Fast forward eight years, and clips of Bill Hader dancing in this sketch became part of a viral trend on TikTok. Not only did this trend literally control my For You Page in 2023, it also stood as a testament to the success of social media in keeping SNL relevant among Gen-Z. The trend was so popular even ChatterBlast had to jump on it!
Unfortunately, I couldn’t NOT include “Spider-Man Kiss.” I love Andrew Garfield as much as the next Gen-Z girl (so, a lot), but wow is this an unsettling watch. I could’ve gone my whole life without seeing either of these tongues, but for some reason whenever this sketch pops up I can’t help but watch the whole thing. And trust me, it pops up A LOT. This video ends up trending on X every few months… usually as soon as I forget about it. It truly is the best example of “cringe but I just can’t look away.” Plus, the surprise cameo from Coldplay’s Chris Martin takes the sketch to a whole new level of WTF. But hey, I can’t blame him. I also would have taken any chance I got to kiss Andrew Garfield. Millennials can keep their Tobey Maguire Spider-Man to themselves.
“Sleep Demon” is probably one of my favorite SNL sketches to date. It is truly the epitome of Gen-Z meeting gay culture (both of which I am!). Something about the cross-over between Troye Sivan, Timothée Chalamet, and boygenius was so beautiful and so unbelievably, well, Gen-Z. The Troye Sivan dance from “Got Me Started” already went viral on its own, but then to bring in some of Gen-Z’s biggest stars to reenact it—true genius from the writers. Plus, it helps that for some reason, Timothée Chalamet and all the members of boygenius do kind of look like Troye Sivan. I mean Troye Sivan himself literally agreed when he changed his profile picture on Instagram.
Now this is a sketch I actually haven’t thought about in a while, but when it came out, wow did it control my life. Watching a bunch of men in a bar get emotional over “drivers license” by Olivia Rodrigo was so unexpectedly funny and so painfully relatable, because, well, we’ve all been there. This sketch both made me feel seen and made me feel called out. It also made me so glad there are no cameras around to capture how I act when listening to that song.
One of the truly defining sketches of Gen-Z and TikTok is “Rap Roundtable,” featuring Pete Davidson and Timothée Chalamet. And I know, two Timothée Chalamet sketches in this list? Well, sue me, I couldn’t help it—Timothée Chalamet may be a millennial but he belongs to Gen-Z. This sketch is just pure COVID-19 brainrot and went incredibly viral on TikTok. So much so, people dressed up as GuapLord and $mokeCheddaThaAssGetta (yes, these were the actual character names) for Halloween. Not to mention, Timothée Chalamet almost breaking character halfway through the sketch is a perfect reminder of what originally made SNL so popular all those years ago… it’s live!
So while SNL now celebrates its 50th year of the show, it may not look the same as it once did back in 1975, and it almost certainly doesn’t have the same loyal audiences that loved it back then. But by leaning into social media and constantly shifting with the times, they’ve continued to stay relevant and adapt to new audiences, generation after generation.
