Why Did Bowen Yang Delete All the ‘Saturday Night Live’ References From His Instagram?

Bowen Yang changed his mind about using passive-aggressive Instagram posts to send Saturday Night Live leadership a message. Apparently, he’s now doing it by giving them the silent treatment.

Yesterday, Yang made waves for subtly speaking out against the show’s decision to shill for Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley in the cold open of this past weekend’s episode. Yang posted a picture of the welcome card that was waiting for Haley in her dressing room signed by “Lorne + Everyone At SNL” on his Instagram page with the side-eyed caption, “everyone! :)” sparking discussion among the show’s online fandom about Yang’s rumored displeasure with the way the long-running sketch show and veritable television institution has cozied up to controversial celebrities. Recently, those prickly public figures have included Haley, Dave Chappelle, who confoundedly appeared during the curtain call of the previous week’s episode to Yang’s visible discomfort, and Shane Gillis, who will make his SNL hosting debut on February 24th, five years after he was famously fired from the show’s cast over his history of using bigoted slurs in his comedy. 

Well, as of today, Yang’s Instagram page no longer contains any mention of Haley’s SNL appearance. In fact, it no longer contains any mention of SNL at all – the comedian scrubbed every scrap of SNL from his social media presence, inspiring questions from his fanbase like, “Is he going to leave after this season?” and “If Faye Dunaway asked for her username back, would he really make her fight him for it?”

SNL fans who have never listened to a single episode of Las Culturistas will probably see the similarities between Yang’s online behavior and that of a star athlete sending a message to his team’s front office that he wants to be traded. For celebrities in the modern age, scrubbing your show, sports team or record label from your social media profiles is Pot-Stirring 101.

Perhaps Yang just wanted to reset his digital footprint by removing everything SNL from his page. Maybe, when he had time to rethink his post about Haley, he decided to go one step further and separate his personal Instagram account from his day job entirely. 

Or, more interestingly, maybe this is just the calm before storm and Yang's going to start a feud with SNL that would make Chevy Chase blush.