Saturday Night Live hosts introducing the musical guest have been repurposed into quick memes on Twitter.
The biggest example of this is Daniel Craig introducing The Weeknd, which Twitter co opted to celebrate the start of the literal weekend. Even Craig himself loves it — at least when his Twitter-less self was finally made aware by a New York Times reporter.
As with everything, social media loves to take an idea and run with it. The Daniel Craig meme inspired the Twitter account @snlhostinro, which surged in popularity to nearly 100,000 followers in only a couple months.
The account owner, who wished to remain anonymous, grew up watching SNL every week and gobbled up reruns on Comedy Central, too. They have a group of friends who did the same thing, and they’d occasionally reminisce about odd pairings of host and musical guest.
“I didn’t really think this would go beyond just four guys reminiscing,” @snlhostintro told Mashable, “but when I saw the popularity of the Daniel Craig/The Weeknd account, I realized there might be an appetite for something like this.”
They created the account in September, and went along posting one or two intros a day without many people noticing. Then, an especially outrageous clip tipped the scales: Actor Adrien Brody introducing Jamaican reggae musician Sean Paul:
The improvised stunt was so offensive that SNL head Lorne Michaels banned Brody from the show. The clip also catapulted @snlhostintro to virality.
“People really shared that one a lot, and I’m assuming it was to…avoid suffering alone?” mused @snlhostintro. They believe already having a backlog of 30 or so intros made people excited when they visited the account, because they can go down a wormhole.
“Would’ve been different if there had only been a few on there,” they said.
The account is also just in its infancy. There are so many SNL clips to pick from, and @snlhostintro hasn’t even touched episodes after 2005. So, while they post at a steady clip, there’s still plenty to come.
How do they choose what to post? One tactic they’ve begun using is researching celebrity birthdays to guide their choices. A recent example is late actor Peter Boyle, who had an October birthday, introducing singer Al Jarreau. Boyle called Jarreau “a valentine for your ears.”
“His daughter saw it and really appreciated it,” said @snlhostintro, “which was very nice to see.”
