It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Saturday Night Live’s first Gen Z cast member would become a TikTok sensation.
Newly promoted repertory player Marcello Hernandez’s brief performance as Domingo in October 12’s “Bridesmaid Speech” sketch quickly inspired a TikTok meme. The entire sketch, which was built around a song parody of Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso,” was a surprise hit, but TikTok users in particular have responded especially well to Hernandez’s catchy verse.
While performing at the University of Minnesota last Friday, Hernandez indulged audience members who begged him to repeat his internet-famous lines from the sketch. Five minutes into his set, the comic acquiesced. “Let’s make a deal,” he told the crowd. “We do it one time and then we put our phones down and you let me tell you the jokes that I wrote for you.”
“I have to do it,” Hernandez continued, “and I have to do it at the beginning, because it has become a thing.” He then walked an audience member through a quick training session to help him recreate the sketch. The attendee responded with a reassuring, “I’ve seen it.”
“This is crazy that this is what my life has become,” Hernandez said before launching into an acapella reenactment, during which he invited the crowd to chant the lines “direct from Domingo” and “but we did hook up though.” Naturally, the performance was met with rapturous applause—and shared dozens of times to TikTok.
@lollljasmine Still cannot believe @Marcello Hernandez was at the University of Minnesota last night #marcellohernandez #snl #comedy #comedian #domingo #umn #minnesota ♬ original sound – jasmine
Just two days earlier, the New York Mets posted a TikTok showing Hernandez being gifted a jersey with “Domingo” printed on the back, which prompted him to sing, “Hey, Mets. Came all this way, had to say, direct from Domingo.”
Domingo’s TikTok popularity hasn’t gone unnoticed by SNL‘s writing staff, as evidenced by the fact that his verse was used in October 19’s “TikTok” sketch as a song choice of fictional user Cat Dancer. Does that mean that Hernandez might be prevailed upon to reprise his character on the show itself? Never say never.
