SNL Hates Bloggers.
I didn't include this in SNL: Just The Funny Parts, because it isn't one, but in a Weekend Update segment this weekend, SNL made their stance on bloggers known with a mouth-breathing portrayal by Michaela Watkins. For anyone taking Intro To Rhetoric, this is a perfect example of a STRAW MAN:
Ugh. SNL, please put that segment into a time machine and send it back to 2005, where it would make sense as a parody of Perez Hilton instead of a transparent attempt to discount all online critics (pegging it to the Oscars was a nice distraction effort, though). While it's probably comforting for TV stars to tell themselves that everyone on the internet who criticizes them is a socially inept pajama-clad loser doing so from his or her parent's basement, the reality is that in 2009 that is just not true. (I changed into real clothes hours ago.) Seth Myers does know that all of his Weekend Update news jokes have already been made by bloggers by the time Saturday night rolls around, right? I mean, that's just a timing issue, but if he thinks he's not doing exactly what bloggers do but on TV, for ten minutes a week, and with twenty writers, he's kidding himself. On behalf of bloggers as a whole, I would like to say "Remember last fall when everyone finally started talking about you again? WE MADE THAT HAPPEN. And as your former Weekend Update co-host, who answered her anonymous online critics in a much classier and funnier way would say: you can suck it."
(HOWEVER, ALL OF THAT SAID, Michaela Watkins's portrayal is completely accurate if you change "blogger" to "YouTube commenter".)
Posted by Lindsay at 3:15 PM in Sketch Comedy, So Meta
Tags: Michaela Watkins | Saturday Night Live | Seth Meyers
funniest part in the whole show...
Score = 19
She was a caricature much like the "over arching stereotype" on eastbound down. Congratulations, your a stereotype!
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Can't take the heat. Biiiitch please.
Score = 22
Is it just me, or can anyone else hear the electricity in the light bulbs on the Weekend Update set between the audience's tentative and pitying laughter?
Score = -4
It's just you
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I GUESS NOT.
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They are drowned out by the sound of crickets.
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I have been curious about how you guys do what you do... I always feel like it would be rude to ask, but you can just ignore the question so I won't worry about that anymore. Do you guys get paid to do what you do, or is this some kind of passion project? If you do, where does the money come from? Is this all that you do or do you have job-type jobs on top of it? If you were really just doing this site from your "mom's basement" or wherever, I don't know why you wouldn't post stuff on the weekends. It's not like people take 2 days off from embarrassing themselves every week...
To be clear, I love the Videogum. I check it compulsively, and I hope you DO get paid to write for it. The only reason I ask is because of your line about the state of blogging in 2009. What IS that state?
Score = 16
So they've resorted to mocking the corpse of Gilda Radner. Bravo Loren Michaels...Bravo.
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If you've seen it in the last few years, they are doing more than "mocking" Radner's corpse, but I ain't gonna say it.
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This is shooting fish in a barrel. At least this time they hit the fish -- better luck next time with the Republican Party, I guess.
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Oh cry away. Another mean post about SNL....how fresh, insightful, and daring of you! "WE MADE THAT HAPPEN". Bwah. DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!??!? I WRITE FOR VIDEOGUM.COM!???!?!?!
p.s. I like your blog (just not right now)
Score = 10
I think this skit is easily a parody of some bloggers, Lindsay. There are plenty of less insightful and thoughtful bloggers than you and Gabe on the internet. I think it is those people who are being skewered, not a blanket indictment of internet critique.
Score = 16
Dude, just ask her out already.
Score = 21
It is a bit ridiculous that you guys spend 80% of your effort on this site making fun of people both on a personal level and broad generalizations. If this is how you feel after an SNL skit mocking people that do what you do but are not you...imagine how this site makes Paul Blart feel. Because he is real and feels for the purposes of this post.
Score = 22
You know who should really be mad? People who do data entry for Kaiser Permanente.
Score = 18
My thoughts on this video/post have mostly been stated. To take this skit as a generalization of SNL's feeling's for all bloggers would be a gross misunderstanding of it. That's like saying SNL thinks all Republicans are just like the "Crazy McCain Rally Lady" (actually, I don't know, maybe they do) or that all a-holes smack gum and call each other babe (there are, in fact, many other kinds of a-holes!). Anyway, even if their characters do overgeneralize demographics or groups, I see that you only get up in arms when it's your group that's being laughed at.
You mentioned that what Seth Myers does is nothing more than glorified blogging, which I'm not contesting, but if that's true then what exactly are you complaining about? He's just blogging! Like you do! If what he's saying is terrible and unfair and not just funny and insincere, doesn't that also apply to Videogum? I mean this site has basically entirely written off as human beings Gwyneth Paltrow, Robin Williams, and all Twilight fans, just to name some. And I mean, okay, I laugh at and make jokes about generalized groups of people too...I'm just saying that IT'S OKAY.
Not trying to be everyone's girlfriend right now, I just thought I should point out some pot-kettle-black when I see it.
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Can you be my girlfriend?
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If you're actually 10-year-old Macaulay Culkin, your chances are good.
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Yeah but the difference is all Twilight fans are terrible. And all of Gwen Paltrow is too.
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Haha, congrats on changing into the real clothes. I think we are all proud of you.
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Oh bloggers, where would we be without your overdeveloped sense of importance?
Bloggers are the best (they are not the best).
Score = 14
So its OK for Tina Fey to tell off commenters as a joke-no-joke, but SNL does it to bloggers and a line has been crossed?
This is Shatner telling trekkers to get a life. Gossip bloggers = The new Trekkers
Score = 12
The best part of this -- BitchPlease.Com is a porn site
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but bitchpleeze.com that is shown in her lower third title is nothing.
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i agree with nightheat, best part of the show. haha, you have feelings and they were hurt!
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This is a test I just want to see if I can italics right...
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Hm I hope that worked?
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I would chalk this up to Michaela Watkins being one of the weakest performers, rather than some sort of grand SNL-endorsed mantra. For what its worth, I follow the show closely, and am surprised I find her less talented than Casey Wilson.
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I'm sorry, but saying Watkins is the weakest performer, when you have KENAN THOMPSON staring you in the face every week ... well, your opinion loses credability. The blog lady was the best segment of Weekend Update, harkening back to old characters like Radner's Emily Littela. Watkins and Wiig are the best female twosome since Hooks and Dunn.
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What I especially enjoyed about that segment was that SNL's assault on bloggers who are lazy and mean to celebrities was sandwiched between segments making fun of Angelina Jolie (she has so many babies!) and Joaquin Phoenix (he acted all crazy on a talk show!).
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Tina Fey never co-hosted with Seth Meyers. God I hate you so much Lindsey.
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Yeah, what Sam said. BOTH sentences.
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Yeah, don't you guys always say the name of your blog after you shit on someone?
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As super-fans of both Lindsay and Gabe, I know that my support of Lindsay's post is going to come off as very kiss-assy. And yes, I am all too aware of how pathetic it is that I worship celebrity bloggers. That said, I totally agree 100% with everything that Lindsay posted. To deny the power that the internet and specifically the cadre of bloggers that L&G run with is foolish. How can you watch tv or pick up a magazine and not see that? And Lindsay's right, SNL's spike in popularity last fall had so much to do with bloggers.
It was posted on Videogum or it didn't happen.
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Oops, I thought SNL's spike in popularity last fall had to do with Sarah Palin. Would it really have been that much less popular without the blogs being all "LOL" every Thursday/Saturday?
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SNL and blogs have enjoyed a pretty symbiotic relationship up until now. Maybe not "top 8" material, but all the same. Since blogs operate in real time (nearly), Seth and his team got to skim off the cream for a whole week before they had anything to go to print. You thought SNL's spike can be credited to Palin? PALIN'S spike was due to bloggers. Granted, she came to dance ready-made, but all the same.l
Score = -8
Wait, when did this show become 100% factual and concrete? This was a JOKE! SNL, Seth Myers, and the other writers don't actually think bloggers are unable to point to North America on a map. Remember how goofy "Bjork" was last week? Do you get all of your news from Weekend Update?
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Sure. No, I know. But as jokey as SNL is (i.e. not so jokey a lot of times), Seth M. has a legitimate career in a field that is really competitive. He has a job that a lot of people want. And, sure it's a job of making jokes, but that doesn't mean it's not still a job. Comedy is not fun, didn't you know that?
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Remember when Gabe used to write on photos in that bloggy paint shop way? e.g. ---> WORST! Oh, wait. Was that Perez? Anyway, those were the dayz!
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I'm glad I found this video cause I wanted to see it again but this site is stupid and you're a self-righteous, self-involved insecure crybaby.
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But who isn't a self-righteous, self-involved insecure crybaby? Certainly the commenters on blogs (me included) are just as self-absorbed. It's the same thing.
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What.
I mean, clearly Roberto Clemente is someone's boyfriend (not the baseball player, OBVI), but if you want to know who isn't a self-righteous, self-involved insecure crybaby, I am not one, and I feel like many of these commenters would say the same.
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Okay, in no way do I mean this as a personal attack. Please know that before you continue reading. But, no....you are. I am too. Every single person who has posted a comment below the post is as well. We're all pretty self-righteous because we're all convinced of our own moral correctness. Otherwise we wouldn't be asserting our opinions. And we're all pretty insecure or we wouldn't be checking to see if any reacted to our tiny, little opinions and then replying with our outraged justifications. And as for crybabies, well, we're all whining and complaining. So...yeah. We are.
I still assert that the post makes an excellent point. It was rude of Seth M. to bite the hand that rss feeds him (sorry. no self-control sometimes.)
Score = 1
Less umbrage, more burns, please. And lots more burnt umber.
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I like Michaela Watkins. I don't think she's weak at all.
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(HOWEVER, ALL OF THAT SAID, Michaela Watkins's portrayal is completely accurate if you change "blogger" to "YouTube commenter".)
Or if she had delivered it via IMversation.
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i was quite surprised to find that the link following the words, "And as your former Weekend Update co-host, who answered her anonymous online critics in a much classier and funnier way would say..." was NOT a link to something about amy poelher.
TINA FEY NEVER HOSTED WITH SETH MEYERS.
also, i agree with all the other people who had problems with this post. i mean, what?
Score = 1
Haha so lame, and I love the pre-emptive "this character isn't like me but it is like anyone who comments something negative about me in the comments section" lameass.
Score = 3
seems to me you can dish it out, but you cant take it
Score = 6
Another lame attempt by SNL to be funny. This is a cross between Gildna Radner and Lily Tomlin. This skit SUCKS!
Score = -7
I just read some of the comments about bloggers taking offense to this skit. Get over it... It's SNL. The only people their irrelevant to is NBC. SNL SUCKS!. Their writers SUCK and Loren Michels sucks!
Score = -8
SNL is the worst. Another "parody" talk show skit? LOLZ. Another "surprise" guest at the Weekend Update desk? Fresh! It's like watching your grandparents' comedy show. Weak sauce.
Score = -3
Looks like NBC posted the official clip to SNL's site. Someone forwarded me a link to a blog post with it -- very funny take on the clip:
http://minivanmonologues.blogspot.com
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