i went to saturday night live and all i got was a nikki haley cameo
without my consent
GOING TO SNL: PART TWO
As we may remember from the past, my friends and I went to see Keke Palmer with SZA as the musical guest a little over a year ago and had quite the journey — from camping outside Friday night from 7 pm to 7 am the next morning, coming back Saturday at 9:30 pm to wait in a numbered line for two hours and still not knowing if we were gonna get in until ten minutes before the live show, to sitting next to Theo James while we got to witness Keke Palmer announce her pregnancy to the entire world. This weekend, we decided to try again for Ayo Edebiri and Jennifer Lopez (lol) as the musical guest.
The difference now from when we did it last time is that you only have to sit outside until midnight, rather than 7 am the next morning. This makes it harder to get tickets because more people feel like they can wait that amount of time — obviously NOT god’s strongest soldiers right there. Our numbers felt like they could be totally fine or not fine at all … which is exactly how it feels every single time for everyone always probably. My number was the last number of the four of us that went together, so when we were in our final lines to see if we’d get in the show on Saturday night, I was put in a different line than them. Each line has 10 people; my friends were 68, 69, and 70, and I was the lucky lil lady at 71, which started the new line. I think we all had a moment of feeling like I wasn’t gonna get in … well, not ALL of us. I truly had absolutely no thoughts in my mind at all, like, not even about the show. I was fully daydreaming about whether I’d rather have three eyes or three noses and what that would do to my life and career. The correct answer is three eyes. You already have two; it’s just one more. Why would you want two extra noses? Why did you even hesitate on that question?
My friends were brought into another room to go through security, which means that you have a better chance of being brought into the show. Between each line that got brought in, it took the longest amount of time for them to bring in my line. Hope was beginning to fade. Ayo Edebiri was never going to host SNL with me in the audience. I mean, she was gonna host the show; I just wasn’t going to be there.
But alas, my row was brought into security, and I made it right behind my friends. They told me that before I got there, the security guy told them that they’d probably definitely get in, but they might not bring anyone else — to which my friends replied, “Well, you should let one more person in because she is our friend and she is small” — to which he replied, “That is not very convincing.” But obviously, it was convincing enough because YOUR GIRL WAS SAT AT THAT EPISODE OF SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE HONEY.
We were placed in the exact same seats we had the last time we went, which felt like fate. It felt like they wanted me to namedrop every person we saw in our area because the area we were seated in was — as I mentioned the last time — right next to the door where all of the famous people hung out during the show. But before we namedrop (I can feel you rolling your eyes I’m sorry), let me set the scene once again.
d;lfkajdsfkljahdsflkajhflkdjashfkjahfdkjsdhflkjadhfklajdhfkladjhfkadhfakefhkadjshfka1
^ that was supposed to be like if you were watching a show or a movie and someone says, Let me take you back or It all dates back to or blah blah blah whatever and then the harp plays and the scene gets all warped until it’s a different time or like when they reverse a scene and the VHS tape reverse sound happens.
After we leave the stairwell, we’re brought up to the floor where the elevators to Studio 8H are — where they have Saturday Night Live. It’s this ginormous room that looks so modern that you wouldn’t even know there’s a little old theater space right above it. And when you’re waiting in that line, you’re just watching a page furiously text someone on their phone as they count us over and over and over and over until another page upstairs tells them how many seats they can fill. And at the same time, they’re blasting ABBA on the speakers, which … I don’t know if it’s supposed to be hyping us up or distracting us from our anxiety of not knowing if we’re getting in or if it’s playing for no reason at all, but it’s happening at the same time as we’re sweating and the page is developing carpal tunnel. We’re all really enjoying ourselves at this point.
Finally, the page takes our wristbands, does not look up from her phone, and passes us the wristbands while giving us a number, and somehow at the exact same time as she says the numbers, she also is saying “TURN YOUR PHONES OFF NOW THEY HAVE TO BE OFF BEFORE YOU GET OUT OF THE ELEVATOR.” 10 of us get pushed into a little elevator and are told that the wristbands need to be on when the elevator doors open. We all stick the wristbands to our arm hairs and storm out of the elevator to the sound of the Saturday Night Live Band, applause, and even more pages shouting, “HAPPY SATURDAY” at us as we drop our tickets in the basket and walk into the historic room.
It’s such a surreal moment walking into that room. The crew is WORKING, the cast is PREPPING, the band is PLAYING, and Lorne is LORNING — there is truly no other way to describe what he does there. We sat down in the same spot we sat in last time, the back row near the lighting guys and the alleged CeLeBrIty RoOm.
Yes, the room of celebrities, where they keep placing us in front of, for some reason. Very quickly, here are the namedrops of who we sat next to:
Zoe Kravitz — very small, very pretty nepo baby
Emma Seligman — writer of Bottoms and Shiva Baby
Kaia Gerber — very tall, very pretty nepo baby
Camila Morrone — actress/model from Mickey and the Bear and Daisy Jones & the Six
Quinta Brunson — mhm I know that’s right
And here is the list of of we saw sitting near us (but not next to us … I’m just trying to be as honest with you as I legally can be)
Molly Gordon — actress from Booksmart, Theater Camp, and The Bear
Kathryn Newton — Reese Witherspoon’s daughter in Big Little Lies and the Antman movies; kept getting told to put her phone away
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — this one was wild
While it felt funny that AOC was there sitting 10 feet away from us, it was also a nice breath of fresh air after SNL decided to throw the real Nikki Haley on us two minutes into the show. THAT was so annoying of them. Giving her the platform to go back on when she said that the Civil War was about “the freedoms of what people could and couldn’t do,” rather than saying SLAVERY is so stupid. And then having Ayo have to call her out for it before she even does her monologue sucked because Nikki Haley barely even responded to it. She said, “Haha, yeah, I probably should’ve said that the first time. And live from New York, it’s Saturday night!” Like, don’t give her the famous line! Don’t let her do anything! Don’t vote for her, America!
The second thing that sucked for jokes at the show was SNL making yet another joke about the genocide in Gaza, starting at 2:40
“Chicago became the largest U.S. city to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, and in return, Gaza called for a ceasefire in Chicago.”
Shut the fuck up! That’s not funny at all! You guys are writing lazy jokes! About a genocide! Yet again, you’ve belittled the death of thousands, as well as taken up space for a better joke! I can give you three newsworthy jokes right now that would’ve been better than that:
The Apple Vision Pros were released this week, giving Donald Trump another excuse to stare directly at the solar eclipse again without any consequences. Absolutely none at all. Someone, let him stare at another solar eclipse.
President Joe Biden won the South Carolina Primary tonight by a landslide. When the press requested a comment from Vice President Kamala Harris, they didn’t get one because she was at another grand opening of an ice cream shop.
This week, Sesame Street’s Elmo tweeted, “Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing?” which gained a large amount of negative responses, including burning him at the stake and … yeah, Elmo’s dead.
These are horrible jokes because I thought of them one second ago, but they’re still better than any joke about genocide. Do better! You know what? These jokes are funny if you say them the right way. Go ahead and try! Have fun with it! Enjoy yourselves! Live, laugh, love!
Ayo Edebiri was a great host, and she didn’t break once. We love her, and we love that the audio from a podcast several years ago of Ayo saying that Jennifer Lopez can’t sing came back into the limelight because … what’s JLo gonna do: prove her right? She did. She did prove her right.
And Ayo in a shirt with a four-leaf clover on it?
We love our Irish princess. If you need context on why Ireland has claimed her as one of their own, here’s said context:
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Long live Ayo Edebiri, and long live Ireland. And live from New York, it’s Sunday night!
tv show rec: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip — I believe I recommended this show the last time I went to SNL, but I’m recommending it again because it’s so good and only lasted a season seriously try to find it somewhere and watch it
book rec: True Biz by Sara Novic — a story about deaf people, hard of hearing people, and CODAs and the world from their eyes; it’s really good and a super easy read
music rec: the last few moments of this clip
put my thing down flip it and reverse it