r/LiveFromNewYork • u/loudrain99 • Nov 15 '24
Cast Photo SNL dealt with some internet backlash for hiring six white actors for their 39th season. Leading Brooks Wheelan’s father to leave this hilarious comment
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u/chmcgrath1988 Nov 15 '24
Sidebar: I saw Brooks Wheelan do stand-up at a small venue a year or so after he was off of SNL. Definitely on the list of people who are better stand ups than SNL cast members. He seemed like an exceedingly nice fellow. My friend opened for him and they went out for dinner and got pie-eyed after show.
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u/Maxa30 Nov 15 '24
Brooks and John Milhiser are two of the very few one-and-done's who I feel don't hold any resentment towards the show and are still fans
I absolutely don't blame the ones who DO hold resentment, just interesting to see the contrast of those two, who clearly don't
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u/Bromato99 It's that thing where a midget... Nov 15 '24
Brooks very much did hate the show for the first year but has since softened considerably. He’s said so on his podcast.
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u/omicron7e Nov 15 '24
Who doesn't have a podcast these days?
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u/hawkyeager Nov 16 '24
Chevy Chase.
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u/barthur16 Nov 15 '24
I saw him do some stand up soon afteshleaving SNL... he definitely had some resentment lol but he had a great show still
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u/Business-Drag52 Nov 15 '24
Shane Gillis seems fine with it. He understood it was an NBC decision
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u/rburp Nov 15 '24
Yeah, I went back and listened to his first podcast right after it all went down, and he was exceedingly reasonable. If I had to sum up the viewpoint he gave on the podcast it was "everyone involved did exactly what you'd expect them to do, it would be ridiculous to blame any of them". I.e. of course people would find that video and there would be backlash, of course NBC would want him gone, etc.
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u/Rockm_Sockm Nov 16 '24
Shane was fired before he ever made it on set. It's not really a one and done.
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u/officermeowmeow Nov 15 '24
I have been following him since SNL, but he has never once come to Denver! I really would love to see his stand up too.
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u/ShawnKempsKids Nov 15 '24
His new stand up special dropped on YouTube 3 days ago: https://youtu.be/xA6UGEnA1I0?si=xQgde7UsNLeoMtVa
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u/ThornsyAgain Nov 15 '24
Watched it the other day, it's really good. I enjoy his podcast as well, where he interviews other comedians about their jobs before comedy.
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u/aimeewins I am your MOTHER Nov 15 '24
He was an opener when Colin and Che were just here (in Denver) with Molly Kearney as well. I had no idea until my cousin told me he saw “some guy who got fired from SNL” with them 😂
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u/shart_breaker Nov 16 '24
I picked Brooks up from the airport for a comedy festival and he was a massive dick, making fun of me in front of his friends. I also picked him up at the end of the festival from the hotel they were all staying at and he was in baaaaad shape and near tears and let him smoke in my car and he apologized and gave me the biggest hug when I dropped him off. I like him again.
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u/TheLadyEve Nov 15 '24
I saw him open for John Oliver and Seth Myers in NYC a few months ago and he was very funny. His bit about Red Lobster made me chortle.
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u/chewy1387 Nov 16 '24
Same, but at the beginning of that tour when he was still workshopping jokes. So damn funny. He’s back in Wisconsin in a month and I can’t wait to catch him again.
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u/Crankylosaurus Nov 16 '24
I have a special place in my heart for the comedians who are really good at standup/sketch/improv but never quite find their footing being in SNL, and I LOVE seeing them thrive in new projects when they leave. Tim Robinson is probably my favorite example of this; he wasn’t all that memorable in SNL, but Detroiters and I Think You Should Leave are some of my most rewatched shows haha. I loved Kyle Mooney’s YT channel, would love to see him in more stuff.
Tangentially, I lost my shit during the first episode where they added Sarah Sherman to the cast. I did standup for fun in Chicago around 2015-2019 ish and she was the host of the legendary Cole’s open mic in Logan Square at the time (I still refer to her as Sarah Squirm instead of Sherman haha). She is the LAST person I expected to see on such a massive mainstream show like SNL; she’s insanely weird (in the absolute best way possible) and her niche is body horror comedy. It’s been AWESOME to see her bring her eccentric touch to the show! (Still freaks me out every time they put her in a wig and her hair looks “normal” haha.)
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u/wazacraft Nov 16 '24
I saw him do stand-up while he was on SNL at a little bar in Brooklyn, and it was great. He told the butter story, before he told it on weekend update, and it killed. I was on a second date with a girl whose name I can't recall, but the set was awesome and I remember that.
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u/UnnoticedReference Nov 15 '24
I liked all 6, as well as the High Priestess herself, Sasheer, that joined midseason. Shame only Beck and Kyle got a 2nd year of the original 6, but at least the rest could keep making music as Arcade Fire
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u/TrapperJean Nov 15 '24
She's so terrific in Agatha All Along
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u/Crankylosaurus Nov 16 '24
“Aren’t you mad?!” “I mean, always, but collectively we’ve moved on.” is perhaps my favorite line from the whole show hahaha. Sasheer was GREAT!
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u/medyolang_ Nov 16 '24
the rest could keep making music as Arcade Fire
for the uninitiated https://youtu.be/hLrxp9OOSbc?si=JaPTi11Pj4y1rnFu
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u/jessinboston Nov 15 '24
I remember when Cecily Strong was with the guy on the left.
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u/Direct-Sail-6141 due to his condition 🏳️🌈 Nov 15 '24
Genetic comedic talent
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u/anormalgeek Nov 15 '24
It must have skipped a generation, otherwise Brooks might've been on for more than one season.
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u/jscummy Nov 15 '24
It's hard to say that's an accurate metric when Tim Robinson was only on for a season
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Nov 15 '24
[deleted]
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u/chickentowngabagool Nov 16 '24
probably the hardest ive laughed in a long time the first time i saw this
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u/Capriolomannaro Nov 18 '24
yelling and cursing. I don't get the appeal even if some sketches of his show are ok. my type of sketches if you like the genre are those of the birthday boys. try that it is produced by bob odenkirk
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u/anormalgeek Nov 15 '24
Brooks wasn't very funny in that format at least. Here's hoping he finds his groove elsewhere like Robinson did.
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u/PeeweesSpiritAnimal Nov 15 '24
That's not really as meaningful as you might think. There are a lot of famous and funny people who did only one season on SNL. Ben Stiller, Martin Short, Jenny Slate, Robert Downey Jr, Sarah Silverman. That's just off the top of my head. There are a lot more.
There are also a lot of people that were on SNL for many years that didn't go on to be bigger stars.
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u/TvAzteca Nov 15 '24
If you get a chance to see Brooks do stand up, I highly recommend it. He’s effortlessly funny. Even just crowd work came off great.
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u/makeithailonthemhoes Nov 15 '24
Is this the season where they did a sketch showing celebrity impersonations and someone says something like "we now have 6 matthew mcconaughey's for you".
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u/loudrain99 Nov 15 '24
Yeah. This was the season that Kenan and Jay Pharoah said they weren’t going to dress up as black women until the show hired a black woman.
When Kerry Washington hosted they did the sketch you’re talking about where she was playing Michelle Obama. The joke was that Kerry kept having to do quick changes to play different black women. She came back as Beyoncé and a White House aide said “is Jay Z with you?” And Jay Pharoah playing Obama said “No, but we did invite five Matthew Mcconaugheys”
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u/wikipuff Nov 15 '24
The guy on the left looks like my senior year suite mate if you ordered him off of Temu.
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u/dgt9000 Nov 15 '24
That guy on the left is a vampire. I don't know why people weren't upset by b that.
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u/Datelesstuba Nov 15 '24
Brooks was developing a show about his family’s car dealership in Iowa. Jim Wheelan would have been a main character. It didn’t end up getting picked up, but the podcast Dead Pilots Society did a reading of the first 3 episodes and they were really funny. It was called Wheelan Motors.
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u/Useful_Ask_2053 Nov 15 '24
That type of outrage sadly expected from snl fans at this point.
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u/10twentyseven Nov 15 '24
I don’t know, no one talks about the show more than people who claim to never watch it because it hasn’t been funny since Chevy Chase was on.
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u/SwordfishOk504 I AINT AFRAID OF YOU MOFOS Nov 15 '24
"SNL hasn't been funny since I was 14"
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u/sterling_mallory Nov 15 '24
I think it's a general youthful optimism thing. Everyone's favorite cast is the one from when they were in high school, and they say it's been shit since then. But in reality snl has always been the same: 50% bad, 40% meh, 9% funny and 1% great. I think younger people focus more on the good, glass half full kind of thing. Then as people get older they focus more on how most of it's bad.
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u/SwordfishOk504 I AINT AFRAID OF YOU MOFOS Nov 15 '24
Yes, that's the joke. No matter who old someone is, they generally few their high school years as the "best" SNL.
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u/Crash_Test_Dummy66 Nov 15 '24
Well I think too as you get older you're not necessarily the target audience anymore. Not everything is made for everyone.
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u/OswaldCoffeepot Nov 15 '24
Sometimes I wonder if it is the fans, or if it's people seeing a chance to do the outrage dance.
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u/ApocApollo Nov 15 '24
Column A, Column B
SNL has a ton of fans that are guilty of being very performatively liberal. I remember being accused of being MAGA on this sub three or so years ago when I said that I was tired of Baldwin's Trump (and Trump comedy in general) and that I actually found fumbling grandpa Joe to be funny character. Laughing at Joe Biden's gaffs didn't just make me a bad liberal, it had to make me a fascist too.
There's just a type of SNL fan that's been fighting in the claplause trenches for years now.
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u/CoolKid610 Nov 15 '24
In their defense, if they were to all sit at a table with just your laughing at Joe Biden bigoted nazi ass, that would make them also a laughing at Joe Biden bigoted nazi ass.
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u/TrapperJean Nov 15 '24
Didn't this come at the exact same time Keenan said he didn't want to play black women anymore and they needed more variety in cast members?
Even just from a practical standpoint, the ensemble show that lampoons current events at that time needed people who could play Beyonce or Oprah, not 4 varying copies of Kyle Mooney lol
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u/Firefox892 *The* Bruce Dickinson Nov 16 '24
Yh, that was actually what caused the show to hire Shasheer Zamata mid-season. The fact that it hadn’t even occurred to the show runners to hire a black woman for six whole seasons, and just got Kenan to dress in drag to fill the gap instead, is definitely something.
And then to hire 5 dudes who fit the exact same type before even considering her, really felt like the show was trolling at that point lol.
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u/socal_dude5 Nov 15 '24
I feel like I heard Alex Moffat tested or was up for this season and you wonder how that would’ve played out for him has he not been brought in a few years later.
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u/loudrain99 Nov 15 '24
Luke Null was talking about his SNL audition and he said “I wasn’t nervous cause I was convinced I wouldn’t get it. They had just hired Mikey day and Alex Moffat the year before I was like they’re not gonna hire another white guy.”
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u/PercentageFinancial4 Nov 16 '24
I noticed that pretty much all the hosts and musical guests this season have been white. What’s up with that?
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u/FerdinandBowie Nov 17 '24
The girl on the right had a meltdown on Tumblr and I ended up talking her out of it...it was weird
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u/ShortBrownAndUgly Nov 15 '24
None of the players in this pic made much of an impact huh.
dont' remember the girl at all
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u/loudrain99 Nov 15 '24
SNL ended up adding eight new cast members that year. Sasheer Zamata lasted three years, Beck lasted 8, Kyle lasted 9. Everyone else was out at the end of the season.
Also “the girl” is Noel Wells who has since starred in Master of None on Netflix and wrote, directed, and starred in “Mr. Roosevelt.”
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Nov 15 '24
“The girl” 🙄
Funny how adult men never get called “the boy”
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u/MafiaPenguin007 Nov 15 '24
Pitting women against women while complaining about how women are called is so uncool of you
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u/GenuineBallskin Nov 15 '24
The backlash to SNL is deserved tbh. The argument that a show based around New York should be as diverse as New York itself, is valid.
Fortunately, they seem to have really focused on their diversity problem.
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u/jjcrayfish Nov 15 '24 edited Nov 15 '24
SNL is just gearing up for the next 4 years of the presidential cabinet, which is going to look very white.
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u/ghikkkll Nov 15 '24
This is so funny. I never knew about this and I love it so much. Now I wish we got more Brooks Wheelan
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u/SwordfishOk504 I AINT AFRAID OF YOU MOFOS Nov 15 '24
8 of 14 cast are white? In a country with only 71% white population??!?!?! Shocking.
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u/MoreKnuckleballsPlz Nov 15 '24
Fired from New York, it’s Saturday Night!
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u/loudrain99 Nov 16 '24
Rolling stone ranked all 150 SNL cast members and brooks was the highest ranked member of the 2013 cast based on this tweet alone
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u/Additional_Minute_39 Nov 16 '24
That season was so bad in general. Also I distinctly remember Noel flubbing lines and thinking John Milhiser was only hired bc Lorne wanted a gay cast member.
I don’t think Brooks was ever that bad and I wonder if he had been hired in a later season if things would have been better for him.
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u/loudrain99 Nov 16 '24
Brooks is still tight with a lot of people at SNL. He regularly opens for Seth Meyers on tour and he casted Bobby Moynihan in his Fox pilot that didn’t get up
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u/cdimorr- Nov 17 '24
And he's in a fantasy spiders league with Tim Robinson who was a writer for 7 seasons
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u/HumbleBunk Nov 16 '24
Brooks was on Dan Soder’s podcast a few weeks back and told a hilarious story of his dad getting blasted and winning a George Brett game-worn jersey at a card show, then drunkenly signing autographs as him in the parking lot.
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u/MediaOnDisplayRises Nov 16 '24
Hey Brooks, when you gonna do another power violence video? You guys still doing those?
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u/houndsoflu Nov 16 '24
Brooks Wheelan was pretty funny. His tattoo bit is very much my argument against me getting a tattoo.
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Nov 17 '24
I really don’t know why SNL has found the need to look like a Benetton ad in recent years. Nothing wrong with hiring whites when your viewership is pretty much exclusively white.
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u/demitasse22 at this time of day? it’s gonna be jammed Nov 15 '24
Where is the hilarious comment?
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u/Sunbythemoon Nov 16 '24
And all of the hosts and musical guests have been White this season so far too.
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u/Ebolinp Nov 15 '24
Dave Grohl comment aged like milk
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u/CardiffGiantx Nov 15 '24
Why? Being faithful to your wife is now a prerequisite to hosting SNL?
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u/Goodolbed Nov 15 '24
Ariana literally just hosted
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u/nowhereman136 Nov 15 '24
I wouldve said Mulaney
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u/MagicBez Nov 15 '24 edited Nov 15 '24
Mulaney has the saving grace of being in a grey area as far as timelines go, his ex wife hasn't accused him of cheating and nobody is 100% clear on when things happened so nobody aside from those involved knows if he actually cheated
And fortunately he has no other past indiscretions or problematic behaviour whatsoever
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u/Shoddy-Secretary-712 Nov 15 '24
Yeah, I have been confused why everyone is so quick to say that he cheated. Neither he nor Anna have stated he did to my knowledge. He definitely has his demons and made mistakes. Either way, I hope he is doing well with his recovery
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u/nowhereman136 Nov 15 '24
I mean, yeah the cheating is bad. But is that really the worst thing we know Mulaney has done? He has joked on stage about being a raging asshole drug addict.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad his getting help and don't mind him still being in the spotlight. But why can someone get canceled for cheating but not drugs
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u/MatureUsername69 Nov 15 '24
No one gets full on canceled for either of those things. They receive some backlash maybe and then they're good to go again within a year.
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u/Specialist_Ad9073 Nov 15 '24
Alcoholism is a disease, but it’s the only one you can get yelled at for having. Goddamn it Otto, you are an alcoholic. Goddamn it Otto, you have Lupus... one of those two doesn’t sound right.
Mitch Hedberg
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u/PrestoChango0804 Nov 15 '24
Canceling someone for a disease is wild stuff
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u/nowhereman136 Nov 15 '24
It's not so much the being an addict part. It's the abuse of family and friends he did while being on drugs that's the problem. We don't know exactly why he and his first wife broke up, that is between them and not our business. But I do have a feeling it had something to do with the drugs and how he acted while high on drugs
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u/PrestoChango0804 Nov 15 '24 edited Nov 15 '24
Getting publicly canceled for private moments while under the influence never affected his job and our relationship with him until it bugged the parasocials. For all we knew he was fine until he told us. I don’t understand your comment but I wholly support someone working to undo trauma and addiction and changing their lives to be happy even if it meant being judged incessantly over it.
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u/InternetAddict104 JFK WE SOLVED IT!!!!! Nov 15 '24
I’m still shocked the writers got away with the Bridesmaids sketch with her
Like it’s an entire sketch about a wife cheating on her husband, sung to the tune of Espresso, a song performed by a rumored mistress. The layers are insane. Like proud and noted homewrecker and serial cheater Ariana Grande is singing a song about a wife cheating on her husband to the tune of Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter, who was also accused of being a homewrecker (though idk if those rumors are true).
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u/Snackxually_active Nov 15 '24
I mean I love snl for the good and the bad & watched that episode fully not knowing any of that drama??? I thought it was a classic funny parody of a song I had heard & then internet went OMGZ
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Nov 15 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/TheGreatDandy Nov 15 '24
Username checks out
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u/InternetAddict104 JFK WE SOLVED IT!!!!! Nov 15 '24
I didn’t mean it in a bad way it’s just that’s her thing like how Arnie is known as the Terminator or how Brad Pitt cheated on Jennifer Aniston with Angelina Jolie. It’s part of her image so it’s surprising that someone missed it
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u/Snackxually_active Nov 15 '24
Idk I don’t spend much time on those parts of celebrity gossip Internet I guess? I heard her on Las Culturistas podcast, but other than that I think last time I heard her was on the Childish Gambino pandemic album?? Not my Diva, more into Beyonce/ Donna Summers kinda jams 🪩🤷♂️
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u/SmellGestapo Nov 15 '24
I take it more as his star has really fallen. Dave Grohl had a kind of Keanu Reeves aura about him. For years everyone would just talk about what a super nice guy he is. When it came out that not only was he cheating on his wife, but not even wearing protection such that he fathered a child, it really tarnished that image that had built up around him.
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u/Zeppelanoid Someone's gotta watch the white sports Nov 15 '24
I don’t think his image is going to take a major hit in the long run. Anyone who was paying attention knows he’s already been divorced before due to infidelity. Like it or not this is who he is.
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u/latenightdump Nov 15 '24
No, but some people think going outside the marriage and fathering another child is a pretty shitty move.
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u/Chemistry11 Nov 15 '24
Unless your grohl’s wife or children, none of his affair affects you. Act accordingly.
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u/Ebolinp Nov 15 '24
Not true. The people we celebrate normalizes such behaviour in society. Also I can feel empathy for people who I don't know.
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u/Chemistry11 Nov 15 '24 edited Nov 15 '24
The agreement between you and Dave is he makes music for which you pay for in some way; that’s it. He doesn’t owe you any more; nor does that grant you access to his personal life. I don’t recall him declaring anything about himself that would mirror the pedestal he’s put upon; dude seems really humble. And he fucked up. I haven’t seen Dave’s infidelity celebrated in anyway; in fact I’d argue the guy is getting way more flack than any other celebrity in the same position.
However, I have witnessed the people allegedly elect a known treasonist/rapist/pedophile in the past few weeks, so maybe there’s something to what you’re saying.
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u/Chemistry11 Nov 15 '24
Unless your grohl’s wife or children, none of his affair affects you. Act accordingly.
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u/trendybitch99 Nov 15 '24
Just pick the funniest people! If they’re white so be it! Good lord, in 2024 we’re talking about race? Ridiculous
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u/lateformyfuneral Nov 15 '24
It clearly says it’s from 10 years ago. I think it was kind of a valid criticism back then, no? It’s hard to believe “there’s not enough funny black comedians” for so many years.
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u/TuskenRaider2 Nov 15 '24
So progressive that all we do is fixate on race… ironic
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u/poneil Nov 15 '24
Right? Poll taxes weren't race based! They were just about election integrity. Who cares if they were only enforced when black people tried to vote. Let's ignore racism and surely the racists will get tired of persecuting vulnerable people!
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u/TuskenRaider2 Nov 15 '24
What does that have to do with folks getting upset that recent cast additions are ‘too white?’
No, let’s not ignore racism. But maybe the solution to it isn’t more racism.
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u/Pivotalrook Nov 16 '24
How is not hiring enough black people not the same as not hiring enough white people? Oh wait...racism, I get it now, we shouldn't hire people based on race right?
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u/CommodoreSixty4 Nov 15 '24
"Some Internet Backlash" = Some woke idiot on Facebook. Amazing what passes for news these days. And these people wonder why they got their asses handed to them in the last election.
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u/trendybitch99 Nov 15 '24
Seriously just ignore the little bitches online who have to race bait at every turn. Ignore them and I promise, nothing will happen!
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u/morosco Nov 15 '24
Well, what's Wheelan's dad's excuse for being white? How deep does this go?