‘I never want to get too mean’: Benito Skinner on his savage viral parodies
The last thing you would expect from a Gen Z comedian whose livelihood relies on being web-savvy is poor Zoom etiquette. Yet when 27-year-old Benito Skinner, AKA Benny Drama, finally appears on screen from his new home in LA, he is momentarily flummoxed by his own backdrop, a fuchsia pink whirlpool of lipsticks. He scrambles around trying to change it, briefly flashing up a still of one of his monstrous new creations, Kooper, the work-phobic, lipgloss-obsessed intern whose dad happens to own the company, before finally finding the off button and settling on the standard Zoom interview angle. “That’s better,” he smiles. “Up my nose vibes.”
It is the likes of Kooper and Jenni, the pill-popping, TMI hair stylist (“One time I had a polyp on my asshole”) that have made and , with recently hailing him “the only funny thing to happen in 2020”. Both of these pin-sharp, bite-sized character studies have been anchored by an extensive résumé of endearingly odd celebrity impersonations, such as Grimes reimagined as a malfunctioning girl scout, Timothée Chalamet reduced to a series of vocal tics, and Kris Jenner depicted as a maniacal tyrant with retractable devil wings. The result? More than 1.2m Instagram followers, including Madonna and Dua Lipa.
