SNL Faces Backlash Over Try Guys Skit

Saturday Night Live is taking flak from at least two directions over a sketch lampooning the Try Guys cheating scandal. Bowen Yang, Mikey Day, and Andrew Dismukes played Try Guys trio Eugene Lee Yang, Zach Kornfeld, and Keith Habersberger in the sketch, which mocked a video released by the YouTube comedy group to address allegations that a fourth member, Ned Fulmer, had an extramarital affair with one of the group's employees, Variety reports. Fulmer was fired from the group, and the sketch mocked the seriousness of the YouTubers' original video, with Day saying the member committed the "heinous act of having a consensual kiss" and they're still processing "this horrific, violent, and probably racist tragedy."

Guest host Brendan Gleeson played a CNN White House correspondent who kept breaking off to announce Try Guys developments, while Ego Nwodim played an anchor confused why any of it was being treated as important news. Amanda Wicks at the Atlantic says the premise was "very online" and the "limp" sketch offered "nothing artful to say about a topic that few outside of virtual circles want to discuss." SNL, she says, "flounders when it just rehashes internet culture instead of being original." The show "cannot refrain from commenting on the times in which it is produced, but it’s far more interesting when it finds a way to critique pop culture rather than simply rehash it—or when it simply logs off," she writes.

After his firing last month, Fulmer apologized to the group and his wife for the "consensual workplace relationship." Page Six reports that Twitter users slammed SNL's take on the subject. "Oof, rude awakening to SNL that the entire internet is on the Try Guy's side," one Twitter user wrote. "There were so many other ways they could have parodied this, but they went for making the victims the punchline while downplaying workplace harassment." Another said it seemed "kinda screwed up that they are making fun of a POWER DYNAMIC of a sexual relationship between a company’s founder and one of its employees." Another user described the Try Guys as "probably the only people in the entertainment industry to actually take action to stop men using their power inappropriately," per BuzzFeed. (More Saturday Night Live stories.)