hank hill
Thinker
I recently noticed that SNL has made a sketch on Momo. How did SNL get to this point? Why is there a sketch on Momo but none on Slenderman? I didn't find the sketch very funny.
He was the boss that dies in the beginning of "Get Shorty", right?
Momo and the Momo Challenge are stunning examples of how fast an urban legend can establish itself as being true by well meaning, but fact-checkless news media.
The story goes like this:
Kids were responding to prompts from Momo to either kill themselves or kill family or friends.
The problem is that there is no proof that this has ever really happened. The media ran with it anyway.
Here's the Snopes take:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/02/26/momo-challenge-suicide-game/
That Momo "sculpture" is rather disturbing...
I don't really know what that Momo thing is, but regarding Slenderman - I would assume that mainstream comedy programs would be leery of using that character for material ever since the brutal murder attempt associated with it occurred in real life. SNL usually attempts to have a wide appeal (though I haven't personally watched in awhile), and the Slenderman reference is tainted for a lot of people.
Honestly, I don't think too many people here are going to know what Momo is, lol.
It's part of a by this point well-established pattern, I think. Some image or video is produced that passes for whatever the internetariat lately considers "OMG creepy!" and/or "nightmare fuel!", and if said image or video goes viral, eventually is appropriated into a story about some threatening online "challenge" that will place people in danger. Curiously, South and Central American countries are where many of the "challenge" stories tend to originate.
A more recent and much more hilarious example than Momo is called "Ayuwoki". The whole business actually started with this video about a really, really awfully-constructed animatronic statue that was intended to look like Michael Jackson, but ended up looking like a corpse of Michael Jackson. The video is, aptly, titled "My Ghoul Jackson":
The statue is really just bad; but weird or ugly mask-like faces, again, is what counts for "omg sooo scary" these days among the softer set, so the video was widely shared as "creepy". Someone at some point joked that the video was similar to the video in The Ring: if you watch it, animatronic Michael Jackson will appear in your room at night and whisper "HEEEE-hee-he".
Someone in Mexico saw the joke but didn't get it - or got it, but decided to pretend they didn't, and now there is a viral panic in Mexico involving people sharing an image of the animatronic character, renamed "The Ayuwoki" (derived from "Are you okay?", a lyric from the song Smooth Criminal), claiming that like Momo it is some internet account that is trying to collect users' addresses so the person behind it can come terrorize them. It got bad enough that a government cyber agency in Mexico made an official statement reassuring people that no, The Ayuwoki will not appear in your house at night and go "Hee-hee" at you.

Is the same show that ran sketches about a pedophile uncle?
Why didn't they do a sketch on Slenderman BEFORE the stabbings? How is internet stuff approachable now when SNL hasn't done that for the rest of its history?
I'm way too old to be modern SNL demo, had never seen the Momo meme, but got the gist immediately. And tying it to a chicken fast food was... perfect.Sad. I always saw SNL as some kind of wall against these ridiculous internet memes. Hiring Pete Davidson had already given them a connection to a younger demographic. Why this thing with Momo? Momo is just a sculpture. How can a meme with a creepy smile serve as the foundation for a fake fast food commercial?