The ‘SNL’ Weekend Update Joke That Incensed Taylor Swift Fans
Does Saturday Night Live’s Michael Che have cojones 10 times the size of normal men? We’re guessing yes since the guy had the nerve to insult Taylor Swift fans earlier this year on Weekend Update. What were you thinking, Che? That fanbase is more rabid than Beyonce’s!
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Che and Colin Jost are no strangers to poking at people in the news. But some Swifties believed Che went too far with his joke last January: “During the Senate hearings investigating Live Nation and the monopoly on concert ticket sales, fans of Taylor Swift protested outside the Capitol. Awww, that’s sweet. And only two years after their dads were there.”
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Ouch! A photo of right-wing insurrectionists storming the Capitol added to the sting. As one can imagine, it’s not the kind of punchline that goes over well on r/TaylorSwift. (As always, we’re leaving the original Reddit punctuation and spelling intact.) “I just didn’t laugh tbh,” griped u/lildemongirl. “The gasp I gasped,” exclaimed u/BerryGlib.
Some fans urged calm. “Y’all are really reading way too much into this,” insisted u/RoyalEagle0408. “It was a Jan. 6th dig more than a TS dig.”
But did Swift deserve to be thrown under the insurrection bus? “It made no sense to draw any connection between fans and January 6th,” protested a deleted user. “Not sure why it’s supposed to be funny either.”
While some Redditors argued that the joke was simply about Swift fans’ youth, most weren’t buying it. “I don't understand what age has to do with it,” wrote u/maccane1123. “The joke is that Taylors fans are mostly white, from conservative families. Not really a stretch when that’s literally what Taylor is lol... (just not conservative herself, obviously. but her dad is.)”
u/littleberty95 disagreed that Swift fans are conservative. “Is he implying that Taylor Swift fans lean right or that their families do? Cuz that’s definitely not true. And I don’t really get why this is supposed funny, like I had to watch it a few times because I was genuinely confused.”
Even with all the vitriol, some fans like u/epk921 thought Che was right on target. “Lol, as the commie-Swiftie child of two people who voted for Trump (but are thankfully not insane enough to have supported this), yeah it’s a solid punchline.”
And despite the angry reaction, SNL was renewed for another season and Swift’s tour appears to have survived the insult. Thank god everyone lived to entertain another day.
