When Ethan Thompson wrote his piece on Andy Samberg and Saturday Night Live for Flow in June 2008, he was drawing warranted attention to what was then the most potent force in Lorne Michael’s arsenal over the prior three seasons – a period that was otherwise notable for a decline in ratings and the loss of marquee talents like Will Ferrell and Tina Fey.1 Rather than solely integrating into the cast of featured players, Samberg (along with his Lonely Island collaborators Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone in mostly behind-the-scenes roles), have been regularly creating their own “SNL Digital Shorts” pre-shot and edited digital video segments. In a sense, the digital shorts function much like the early SNL short films by Albert Brooks, Walter Williams’s series of Mr. Bill sketches, or, more recently, Robert Smigel’s TV Funhouse cartoon parodies – as prefabricated content to be included in the SNL live broadcast, often immediately following a live skit but before going to a commercial break. However, the emphasis on these shorts’ “digital” nature is no accident, as they have gained much attention through and for their post-broadcast circulation (both legal and illegal) as viral videos.2

Since then, SNL has experienced a rather pronounced uptick due to its near relentless onslaught of political comedy focused on the 2008 US presidential election.3 From the beginning of the 34th season in September 2008 to the election in November, there were seven full-length episodes and three unprecedented half-hour Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Thursday episodes with very traditional political sketches and news reports parodying events along the campaign trail. With the serendipitous and inspired performance of former cast member Tina Fey as Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin at the foref, SNL’s ratings climbed, and the economic and cultural capital of the show increased considerably with recaps of and clips from the political sketches being discussed across various news media.

Whether this popularity boost experienced around the 2008 election will last is unclear, but at the very least, it might have some folks thinking that SNL is, despite its efforts to remain cutting edge, continuing to be defined by its old bag of tricks. And in large part, this is true. After all, as mentioned above, even “SNL Digital Shorts” appear to be only the latest incarnation of the various prefabricated segments that have always held some place in the sketch comedy format of SNL. Thus, an obvious lens to view the digital shorts through is one casting SNL as an old media industry property seeking to appropriate a designation of new media for the hip cachet and audience demographic it brings with it. While this is certainly a component of the story, to focus on it exclusively is to misapprehend the crucial (and continuingly relevant) role that SNL has played in the development of what we know as viral video.

Actually, to be clearer, what is getting lost when we frame The Lonely Island’s trajectory as a cooptation of new media by old media is the fact that their brand of viral comedy needs to be understood as having a rather important relationship with sketch comedy as a mode of expression. The majority of viral videos in their typically brief, typically comic nature belie their resemblance to SNL’s sketches, in addition to other sketch comedy television, the variety format in general, and, of course, the vaudeville stage. In all these mediated environments, short-form comedy has played and continues to play a constitutive role.

The unit of the comedy sketch is one that has long been transmedially mobile. Vaudeville routines were quickly appropriated by film, radio, and television as each of these then-new media emerged. Variety shows incorporating sketches became a fixture of early radio and television, and although that format seems to be suffering an extended period of declining interest and/or viability, SNL has maintained it through an emphasis on its comedy sketches and a integral/cyclical element of rebirth – i.e. a new host and musical guest each week and a changing cast each season (and sometimes cast changes during a season). The sketch as media form only supports this regenerative, adaptable nature. The notorious scheduling decisions that go on behind the scenes at SNL underscore their malleable nature. These units of content can be plugged in, pulled out, reformulated, or discarded as the timing of the live broadcast and the decision-making power of Lorne Michaels mandates. A sketch not used in one broadcast may be inserted into a later one. A sketch that gets a lot of laughs can be revisited as well, either through simple replay (as is often the case with SNL commercial parodies) or by revisiting its characters or situations in subsequent versions.

Perhaps even more importantly, the comedy sketch, which is typically organized around simple conceits – characters with socially awkward flaws, absurd scenarios taken to illogical extremes, parodic lampooning of public figures, etc., has always had a propensity for social circulation. Originating from stage or screen, the comic scenarios rendered in sketches are potent fodder for the gristmills of casual conversation. While this would certainly include any type of Monday morning synopsizing, perhaps the most obvious vessel of sketch comedy moving through the medium of public conversation is the comic catchphrase, of which SNL has popularized many throughout its run (e.g. “We are two wild and crazy guys!” “Consume mass quantities…” “Isn’t that special?” “Goulet!” “You betcha!”). These very small units of discourse, which we could certainly call memes, initially carry with them the themes of a sketch but can quickly break free and circulate through unanticipated and broad cultural channels.

As such, social transmission, or virality, has always been a goal and potential feature of sketch comedy, especially in the flexible domain of SNL through where new talent and ideas are constantly cycling. In this regard, is it any wonder that it has incorporated early makers of viral videos, The Lonely Island, into its fold? Of course, just because it makes sense doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t ask Thompson’s ultimate questions: Is this the best that can be expected for creative online videomakers? Is adoption into the MSM to be considered success? But to focus on these questions exclusively is to find ourselves mired in the well-worn narrative path of evil media industry cannibalizing and destroying the progressive potential of DIY mediamakers. Sketch comedy has always been a porous, slippery affair, at least in part because comedy has to be. While originality is often touted as an essential ingredient for getting laughs, in practice, it’s more about commonality, cultural legibility, and finding shades of authenticity in the inauthentic.

We can and should question the motives and operations of old media franchises like SNL when they plunder grassroots cultural coffers, but we also need to recognize that comedy itself is a restless and promiscuous enterprise. For The Lonely Island, starting from the position of independent makers distributing their own wares was always about accruing the credibility needed to gain access to other lucrative media platforms, and in that quest, they’ve been very successful. Finding space beyond video hosting websites on television screens, in movie theaters, comedy clubs, and now, thanks to the recent release of their Incredibad album (facilitated by the established viral popularity of many of its songs which began as shorts), radio airwaves and mp3 players, they have become emblematic of the viral nature of short form comedy. But that is hardly a first for SNL, which has, even since the original “Not Ready for Prime Time Players,” always been only one outlet for its cast and crew members’ creative output.

For the career-minded comedian, the impulse has always been and always will be to get to as many paying gigs as possible, and accordingly, viral video, which currently offers little in the way of direct compensation, will be used as a tool of self-promotion but probably not seen as a desirable final destination. Of course, new revenue models will develop in time, but for many viral videomakers, a career in entertainment is not expected or desired. For those active users, or produsers in Axel Bruns’s coinage,4 our criteria for creative or artistic success and relevance will need to be rethought and retooled, but given the propensity for short form comedy to circulate virally, it’s likely that it will find new paths of distribution in the future as well. How long those paths will continue to intersect with SNL is questionable, but given the program’s formidable and fluid position in late twentieth/early twenty-first century American comedy, its relevance is likely to persist, at least for a little while longer.

Image Credits:
1. Blues Brothers

1. Ethan Thompson, “Convergence Comedy: Andy Samberg Vs. SNL,” Flow 8, no. 2 (2008), http://flowtv.org/?p=1462.
2. John Biggs, “A Video Clip Goes Viral, and a TV Network Wants to Control It,” The New York Times (2006), http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/20/business/media/20youtube.html.
3. Bill Carter, “‘SNL,’ with Palin, Delivers Highest Audience in 14 Years,” The New York Times (2008), http://tvdecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/snl-with-palin-delivers-highest-audience-in-14-years/.
4. Axel Bruns, “The Future Is User-Led: The Path Towards Widespread Produsage,” Fibreculture, no. 11 (2007), http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue11/issue11_bruns.html.

With the opportunity to write an editorial for Flow, I would like to first get a rather trivial statement off my chest: I am very glad that Kellie Pickler was voted off American Idol this past week. She seems like an incredibly nice young woman, but truly, her voice and showmanship were not on par with the rest of the contenders. That the American voting public made this decision has restored my faith in a constrained version of capitalistically mediated democracy.

For better or worse, I have been a religious AI watcher this season, meaning that I rarely miss a live broadcast. For me, this is not abnormal, as it falls perfectly in line with my history of viewing habits. I have always enjoyed “live event” television. I love to know that I am psychically aligned with millions of other viewers as we witness together everything from unexpected brilliance to mundane pap to horrendous failure. Knowing that in the days following any AI broadcast, I will likely run into a handful of people who will want to discuss what went down is one of the biggest draws. For me, this is a cultural nexus point better than the Super Bowl – one that works particularly well with my own proclivities for schmaltzy pop music.

But I have had a twin obsession lately when it comes to my viewing habits. In addition to my older, more established habit of live network television, my more recent discovery of streaming video on the internet has excited me, particularly sites like Channel101 and YouTube. Essentially, anyone with a webcam and a computer can put together an offering for the whole wired world to consume at their leisure. Channel101 comes closest to a television broadcast, as the site hosts various program series that can be followed by interested viewers. The series that continue are chosen at voting parties hosted by the site where new installments are premiered, and if liked by the audience, the series’ makers are invited to create further episodes. Of course, I have witnessed a wide range of content on the site, from the most mind-numbingly inane to the most absurdly hilarious (of course, the fine line between these poles is drawn differently for every individual). However, like AI, I still get the competition aspect, where I can check in every month to see which series have made it and which ran out of steam.

What I am deprived of in my new online viewing ventures is the same cultural pervasiveness that I experience with AI. If I want to discuss what is happening with a particular program on Channel101, I am normally forced to actually show my potential conversant the program before we can hash it out. At that point, their opinion is colored by my own, and the dialogue usually amounts to little more than general agreement on the value of the program. At best, I become a marketing tool, the hallowed “word of mouth,” for the site’s content, hoping that someday a large enough group of viewers will exist for me to find adequate pleasure in casual conversations. But will that really happen?

It seems to me that we are on the cusp of some potentially radical interplay between the internet and television viewing. Aside from my own fixation with low budget silliness on Channel101, many programs originating on television are soon available for streaming or download both legally and illegally. But will the two forces meet somewhere? Obviously, this is not the first time that this topic has been pondered on Flow, but as I receive more and more of my pleasure from internet delivered programming, I cannot help ponder when and how convergence will take place. And if it does, will more disparate programming mean that I will lose out on the old cultural touchstones like AI? No water cooler critiques? We may be on the verge of drastically altering our mix of social glue, and how it binds us to or repels us from each other will be fascinating indeed. In the meantime, I will be stumping for Taylor Hicks.

Image Credits:

1. Kellie Pickler

2. American Idol judges

After weathering a torrent of season finales, it seems that as an American TV watcher, I should be able to breath a sigh of relief and take a break from the rigorous schedule of shows to which I have held myself over the past months. While there is plenty of programming in the summer, I can free myself from the shackles of “must see” new episodes of the primetime serials that regularly command my attention. However, precisely at this moment, I find myself quite anxious and unable to relax. How can I have any relief when I have no idea what Jack, Locke, Kate, and Hurley are on the verge of confronting in the mysterious, now opened, hatch on the island of Lost?

As an aspiring TV scholar, I feel compelled to maintain some critical distance from the medium, yet I still find myself helplessly swept up in the constant flow of narrative strategies. Fully armed with the knowledge that ABC’s Lost is just another ploy on the part of the Disney Corporation to pull me in as a young consumer to offer to their advertising clients, shouldn’t I be able to resist the cheap device of the cliffhanger? Can critical media scholars allow themselves to be susceptible to the wanton pleasures of TV?

In this issue of Flow, the columnists find room on both sides of this question – some more polarized than others. On the more distanced critical side, Aniko Bodroghkozy, Dana Polan, and Kallol Bhattacherjee offer their respective views. Bodroghkozy, painting the 1990s’ cultural studies approach to TV texts as too decadent, challenges media scholars to get involved in media reform and recognize the political economy involved in production. In a more frustrated state of mind, Polan throws the book at TV, pointing to its failure to present any meaningful critical information of the world in which we live, instead diverting us with the inanity of Michael Jackson trial reenactments. Bhattacherjee offers a critical rundown on the monocultural state of television in the pluricultural Indian state.

More engaged with texts and enjoyment, Daniel Marcus, Walter Metz, and Jason Mittell offer some great observations as well. Finding an instance of TV advertising running counter to the presumed goals of the advertiser, Marcus explains how Citibank attempted to promote its brand name by dissociating itself from corporate greed through their Live Richly campaign. With unabashed appreciation for the fictional universe of TV, Metz laments the end of Star Trek: Enterprise, pleading for another spin-off in the near future. Mittell denounces the unwillingness of academia to evaluate the aesthetics of TV programming and promises to make such an evaluation of Lost in his next column for Flow (now there’s a cliffhanger).

Happy reading folks, and don’t forget to comment where you see fit!

Image Credits:
1. This Issue on Flow