Live From New York It's Sunday Night

I started, like most of us did, on YouTube. It was 2013 and I had just gotten my own laptop for sixth grade. The only real TV I had watched up to this point was Disney Channel and selected episodes of Modern Family downloaded onto my Kindle Fire. Sleepovers still revolved around the question of whether we would RedBox a movie or do each other’s makeup or prank call with *67 (Netflix launched its streaming service in 2007, but hadn’t become mainstream enough for middle-schoolers to know their parents’ passwords). RedBox, Netflix, or XFinity OnDemand may have been for sleepovers, but in private, there was one platform the early 2010s preteen used religiously: YouTube. YouTubers would occasionally weave into lunch table chat, but it was always a surprise to find your friend, too, watched iiSuperwomanii or Miranda Sings because of the way in which this entertainment experience cultivated something so personal, so precious. Despite their fame, YouTubers were also our friends, a discovery that felt uniquely ours.

It is why when I typed Saturday Night Live into the YouTube search bar one summer afternoon— egged on after some adult told me “I probably wouldn’t find it funny”— the show felt like my own invaluable find. Of course, the adult was mostly right. I was eleven. But the miraculous thing about a good joke is that you can still be in on it without knowing why it’s funny. Of course, the routine of waking up Sunday morning to a new crop of sketches and cold open and Weekend Update (watching it live required cable TV, YouTube at the time a fresh new alternative to that experience). Of course, the celebrity guests that I often vaguely knew. But most of all, it was my first experience as a real fan. I watched sketches dating back to the 80s, knew all of the cast members, all of the famous character breaking moments. I read Tina Fey’s Bossypants and then I watched 30 Rock and I made sure to watch any cast member’s comedy specials that aired (yes, on Netflix, my dad eventually gave me the password).

During the SNL50 special February 16th my SNL fangirl was overjoyed to see a reprisal of my favorite sketches growing up. “Diner Lobster,” “Close Encounter,” “Black Jeopardy,” and “Debbie Downer” all made an appearance to my delight. I wish Tina Fey and Amy Poehler did an update segment together, but Bill Murray was smooth and Drunk Uncle viscerally funny. Eddie Murphy was undoubtedly the star of the show, and it was nostalgic (older generations may laugh) to see Kate McKinnon as Giuliani. Of course there are opinions about the special. Some could say it was too long and the sketches not witty enough. But the length and extravaganza was required to do justice to what was a monumental moment for comedy.

Last night, I realized something I did not realize at age eleven giggling at Tina Fey’s “Kotex Classic”: that it wasn’t, for me, just about being a fan. For all of the glamor of celebrity and chart-topping musical guests, SNL, at its core, is pretty weird. The cast members are weird. The characters are weird. Even Lorne Michaels himself, with his perpetual frown and dark eyes, looks a little weird. It didn’t matter that no cast members were Indian (still holding out)—what I saw in Fey and Poehler and Aidy Bryant and McKinnon and Cecily Strong was a willingness to publicly look like a fool and wear bald caps and horns and scream and be gross and just be, well, weird. When Fey and Poehler took the stage all dressed up Sunday night, they looked less like Hollywood stars and more like women in their 50s. Adam Sandler, he looks like your average guy. Will Ferrell, Kristen Wiig, Kenan Thompson. It’s not that they're not attractive. They are. What I realized is that no one cares if they are. The only place for the ego is backstage. This is how SNL, with its quiet expertise, welcomed me into the world of comedy as a young girl with no outstanding terms and made me feel, more so than anything else in my life at the time, like a legitimate person. Legitimate in my quirks, my aspirations, and of course, my sense of humor.

SNL50 aired a segment Sunday night that flashed nearly every major “cancelable” moment in its history, from slurs to cultural appropriation to sexually offensive material. We all laughed and cringed. Whether or not the segment passed PR checks because of the anti-cancel-culture sentiment of the moment, I was impressed with NBC. Baked into SNL is the history of SNL, and a sensitive commitment to its flawed tradition. The show is simultaneously aware of its own obscurity and relevance, similar to any good writer or artist. It is why Dave Chapelle will host after Trump’s inauguration but NBC can also air a documentary that takes viewers into SNL’s worst season.

I noticed the commercial transitions during the live show on Sunday, something lost watching clips over YouTube. The camera tends to linger over the set as the cast members disassemble after the sketch concludes and often catches part of the audience, too. The overdressed celebrities looked uncomfortable in their small chairs, without a drink in hand or a big sweeping stage to crane their necks upon further glamour. The Studio 8H stage is small, and it isn’t that forgiving. Comedy isn’t either. That is its risk and its greatest reward.