Michael Che’s New York State of Mind

Michael Che, SNL’s head writer and Weekend Update’s host, can’t stop gushing about me. The process began in June of last year, when SNL opened a website specifically for open writer submissions. The normal language you’d see in any submission agreement was included in this one as well, protecting the show against accusations of theft in the event that future segments ended up being similar to the original material.

But the SNL submission had a condition I’d never seen before, basically stating that if you gave a link to your social network, everything on it would be considered contributed material and subject to the same legal sanctions.

Michael Che’s New York State of Mind

When I saw that SNL was essentially giving themselves the authority to cherry-pick the feeds of anyone who submits, I did what I always do when something is even slightly unpleasant to me: I made a nasty little tweet about it on Twitter.

Screen Captures

I shared a series of screen captures from the submission document with the witty caption, “The funniest thing about the SNL Writing Submission site is it absolves them from stealing your ideas, and then also says if you include a link to your social media it counts for everything you’ve ever posted as well.” There were only a few dozen people who shared the tweet at first.

I did not tag the programme nor did I name any of the staff members when I uploaded this. But Michael Che located it in less than fifteen minutes and shared it on his Instagram story. A large white block of writing read, “lol the stuff people worry about..

I think you’ll be alright, bro,” and was superimposed on top of the screenshot. He then attached an image of a direct message from a fan who wanted to know who I am, to which Che replied, “he’s one of those bearded white guys with glasses that dislikes snl, not much about his personal life on there, but I’m sure it’s wonderful.”