You can’t trust everything you see on the internet, and that’s certainly the case when you see a modern-day Colin Jost in a photo from 1992. However, that particular image from Saturday Night Live ended up coming back up in a very real report about the Epstein list.
Late Nighter caught the mistake after Mediaite ran an article about the redacted names of the political figures exposed in the Epstein files. The main image was that of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein at Mar-a-Lago from that iconic 1992 image, but there was something added into it.
It was the Saturday Night Live cast member Colin Jost, who likely knew this would cause trouble when the image was created earlier this year. Poor guy! The image has since been removed from the publication, but you know the internet!
Michael Che was just doing something funny on Saturday Night Live
During the Oct. 11 “Weekend Update” segment, Michael Che and Colin Jost continued their usual thing of reading jokes that they have written for each other. They’re usually a lot of fun, and people probably didn’t think too much when that 1992 image popped up with a photoshopped image of Colin Jost in the background.
Now, you would think that people wouldn’t expect Jost to have been there. At least, not looking the way he does now. That Mar-a-Lago photo was around 33 years ago, which would have made Jost around 10 years old.
AI was used for another part of the segment, showing a modern-day Jost dancing along with those at the party. It was as if he was there the whole time, but we know that not to be the case.
No, Colin Jost was not at Mar-a-Lago
Just to reiterate, there is no way that the Saturday Night Live image could be real, considering Colin Jost's age. But what this does is raise an important topic about CGI, AI, and believing everything you see on the internet. It’s easy to look at the image at first and feel sick enjoying the comedy of one particular man. You have to then take a step back and realize that the image used in the article about the Epstein list couldn’t be possible.
However, not all images on the internet are like that. We’ve seen all sides of politics use AI and CGI to make images look to be something different than what they are, which is why it’s always important to verify source. Don’t just blindly share.
Mistakes happen, though. When you do make a mistake, own it and apologize, and then we can all just take the lessons from it.