Even if you don’t watch the show (or haven’t watched it in a long time) I think we can all agree that Saturday Night Live is a television institution. The sketch comedy juggernaut will soon enter Season 50 when it next hits the 2024 TV schedule and we all know that the many cast members and writers over the years have done amazing work to keep the show relevant and, most importantly, funny for so long. However, cast member Bowen Yang has a take on starring on the series that many might not expect, as he just explained why SNL is “the cringiest thing is show business.”
Why Did Bowen Yang Say That Saturday Night Live Is The Cringiest Thing In Show Business?
While it must feel amazing to know that you made millions of people laugh on a weekly basis, along with hearing the thunderous applause and delighted chortles of a live audience, it’s pretty clear that working on Saturday Night Live can be pretty difficult. Star Bowen Yang has already admitted that having his ideas cut from the show led to him being “fully calloused all around my body” so that the impact of his hard work not getting on the air doesn’t even affect him anymore.
While chatting on his Las Culturistas podcast with his co-host, comedian Matt Rogers, the duo were talking about the many cringe-worthy aspects of the upcoming presidential election, when Rogers noted that it's “nice to feel there’s a path forward” with “nirvana” on the other side, and added:
You have to sometimes climb up a huge hill of cringe, and once you can scale that hill — which is, you know, it might be your judgment of yourself, it might be your judgement on what you’re doing, it might be everyone saying what you’re doing is cringe — on the other end, you slide down into happiness and nirvana.
It was then that the Wicked cast member decided to use an example of “a huge hill of cringe” from his own life, and turned the topic to his time on SNL, saying:
I know about working through cringe, climbing a cringe mountain, I work at Saturday fucking Night Live, the cringiest thing in show business on every level. Cringe mountain is SNL. Eternally grateful that I work there, will be the defining thing of my life and career, and yet it is a cringe mountain because to live through working at SNL and to have people constantly tell you how much it sucks, how bad it is, how it’s not as good as it used to be, for your career — that has to do something to you psychologically where you emerge and go, ‘I don’t give a fuck.’
I have to say, his reasoning for SNL (which still uses cue cards) being “cringe mountain” is not what I expected it to be. My assumption would have been that having a sketch bomb on live television would do it, and though I’m sure that doesn’t feel good in the moment, there’s a much different thing that leads to the feeling for Yang.
For the comedian, the sketch show that vaulted his career to new heights when he joined the cast in 2019 is mostly a cringe-worthy affair because of what people who have nothing to do with the series feel free to say about it to his face. Can you imagine? Let’s say that you’re a mechanic and you tell someone which auto body shop you work for and they go, “Oh, I used to take my car there all the time, but it’s really gone downhill the past few years. Why do you still work there?” That would likely give anyone a cringe response, especially if it happened “constantly,” which is way more possible when you have a job as visible as the one Yang does.
The duo continued, and when Rogers brought up how hard they have to work under some hard/weird circumstances (like wearing wigs and oddball costumes), he also pointed out how incredibly challenging it is to be an employee of something that has been so recognizable for so long:
- Yang: It's a cringy job.
- Rogers: I don’t think it’s cringe, but I will say, in what I'm saying is everyone has a fucking opinion. It’s the most popular show in the world, it’s now been on for 50 years, it is Capital C commercial culture, and therefore it’s cringe because everyone is like, ‘I’m having something to say.’
That effect is actually quite common when anything has cemented its place in pop culture like SNL has. We all feel a sense of ownership over the movies, shows, books, etc. we love dearly, especially when a series/franchise has gone on for a long time, because it becomes a part of our lives and often a big and important one. But, that can lead to a sense of disconnection if we’re not careful, where we forget about the real hard work actual people are doing to bring said things to us on a regular basis.
No one, basically, should be telling Yang or anyone else how shitty the series they currently work on is, particularly if the one doing the telling doesn’t also work on the same show. You can think it’s not as good as it was 20 years ago or whatever, but don’t tell that to the guy who’s actively working his ass off right now to make it good!
The lovely thing, of course, is that the Fire Island star has been able to use such cringe remarks to help fuel his work on SNL, because he’s come out with that “I don’t give a fuck” attitude that’s so important when you need to take all the breaks off and create. As Rogers added toward the end of their conversation, “the visceral thing of people laugh, people feel good, and that is why we're doing this,” makes that cringeworthy bullshit worth it after all.
