No stranger to courting controversy, the long-running NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live is garnering some backlash again.
The most recent episode of Saturday Night Live, which was hosted by Elon Musk, is garnering more than its fair share of criticism for one of its sketches. The skit, “Gen Z Hospital,” depicted a group of friends in a hospital area waiting on news surrounding their injured best friend, whom they refer to as “bestie.”
Throughout the skit, the cast – which includes Musk, Kate McKinnon, Mikey Day, Heidi Gardner, Ego Nwodim, and Bowen Yang – used “bruh,” “pressed” “catch hands,” ‘tea” and more. which are all slang terms that originated in Black culture.
The skit was criticized for wrongly deeming African American Vernacular English (AAVE) as “Gen Z internet slang” by many Twitter users. Here are some of the reactions to “Gen Z Hospital” below.
and y’all wonder why i’m hateful https://t.co/N7wbYiF5m0
— jay (@JAYVERSACE) May 9, 2021
the misuse of aave and calling it “gen z talk” is embarrassing pic.twitter.com/ZGzzOehkq3
— Luci ⧗ (@luciferverse) May 9, 2021
This is why black people (AA) want to gatekeep aave. Aave isn’t some funny internet language created by some teens on TikTok nor is it slang, it’s a whole dialect with its own rules. Black people have been literally speaking like this during slavery of course-
— My @ makes no sense (@MTimmitjr) May 9, 2021
Be the judge for yourself and watch the SNL skit below:
