Colin Jost on becoming an SNL writer at 22

[@Zennofobic]

really good interview... i came here after hearing BIll Hader talk about how Fred Armisen would mess with Colin Jost. I had no idea he had been at SNL that long. His entry level class at SNL all went on to pretty big stardom. Hader and Jost are finally getting their dues this year.

[@tryin2beehappygolucky431]

I hope Scarlet is giving him acting lessons, because i think someday he's going to be big time Hollywood.

[@cherrycreeper]

No idea he had been there so long, he just wrote and then moved on to actually doing Weekend Update I guess

[@jo_darel]

He still writes, he's head writer now with Michael Che since circa 2017

[@keithmccleary5876]

Another inspiring hard-luck story of a young white male from Harvard struggling through the upper echelon in order to become a part of the upper echelon. Have we not all been clueless ivy league econ majors wandering into the countercultural offices of the Lampoon, in our own way?

[@clara-nt9rx]

Keith McCleary cmon getting into harvard and becoming an snl writer at 22 are both pretty impressive. Sure he probably has rich parents but most people don't use their resources like he did. He's not that funny now though maybe he should get out of snl.

[@DrMuffin1080]

clara I think he’s pretty funny

[@DrMuffin1080]

Paraphrase: I’m absolutely not a jealous hater. Dude, what the guy did is still pretty impressive. And yeah, sure, he had these connections to really help him, but makin it on SNL as a writer that young is still pretty badass, as well as makin it into Harvard, even with rich parents. He isn’t the pivotal success story, but he wasn’t pretending to be.

[@keithmccleary5876]

Yeah, I think what IC said is what I was thinking. There's an element of "aw shucks, I was just a regular guy and now all this just sort of happened to me, gosh!" that Jost suggests in his narrative, and that the interviewer encourages. It's a difficult thing to pinpoint, but I suppose I feel concerned that his sort of success story continues to be, in essence, normalized -- the message here is that anyone could just sort of fumble into his position with a little bit of talent, which is by no means the full story, nor does it accurately describe what a struggle it is to become successful in ANY competitive field without a lot of privilege thrown in. My first post was just a kneejerk reaction, but it would be more fair to say that yes, Jost is certainly talented and tenacious -- but the "guy off the street" backstory is a pretty ridiculous myth that we continue to perpetuate in our culture, and at this point it likely does more harm than good to our collective psyches. When every person in the public eye adopts the posture that they just started out with a couple of sticks and now they live in the Taj Mahal, all that does is de-emphasize the reality that our society is actually far more demanding, and far less forgiving, of those with similar ambitions. It's a myth that minimizes the grind -- and in fact, it's a myth that makes it seem like those who struggle are at FAULT for struggling (are doing something wrong) rather than experiencing something completely normal, while celebrities born of privilege are actually the outliers.

[@TheInroad]

Suck it up.

[@AliDaoudi]

Look at the difference of luck, meagwile a comic like me is thrown in Yemen