If you only know Colin Jost as “that very clean-cut guy behind the Weekend Update desk,” you’re missing at least half the joke. Over the past two decades, the Staten Island–born comedian has quietly moved from Harvard Lampoon nerd to the longest-serving anchor of Saturday Night Live’s most iconic segment, all while writing sketches, publishing a bestselling memoir, acting in movies, and marrying into the Avengers. That’s a lot of material to rank, roast, and overthink which, conveniently, is exactly what the internet was built for.

So where does Colin Jost really land in the pantheon of SNL legends? Is he an underrated joke assassin or the human embodiment of “your friend’s nice fiancé”? Let’s break down the rankings and opinions that follow him around from critics and fans to people who have decided that anyone who went to Harvard must be slightly evil.

Who Is Colin Jost, Really?

First, the basics. Colin Jost was born in 1982 and grew up on Staten Island, New York, in a family that is aggressively respectable: his mom worked as the chief medical officer for the New York City Fire Department and his dad was a high-school teacher. He attended the elite Regis High School in Manhattan, edited the school paper, and then went on to Harvard, where he studied history and literature and became president of the Harvard Lampoon, the school’s legendary humor magazine.

After college, Jost wrote for local papers and a Nickelodeon animated series before submitting a packet to Saturday Night Live. The show hired him as a staff writer in 2005. From there, he climbed through the ranks: writing supervisor, then co–head writer, and eventually co-anchor of Weekend Update starting in 2014. Over time, he and Michael Che turned the faux-news desk into one of TV’s most reliably meme-able corners, with Jost often playing the straight man to Che’s chaos.

Outside Studio 8H, Jost has done stand-up, acted in movies like How to Be Single and the 2021 Tom & Jerry film, and written a New York Times–bestselling memoir, A Very Punchable Face, that reveals a darker, weirder sense of humor than his tie-and-suit persona suggests. He’s also married to Scarlett Johansson, with whom he shares a son a detail that fuels at least half the jokes about him on social media.

Ranking Colin Jost’s Comedy Credentials

1. Weekend Update Co-Anchor: The Signature Role

If you’re ranking Colin Jost performances, Weekend Update sits firmly at number one. This is the job he’s held the longest and the one that defines his public image: polished, slightly nervous, but ready to drop a savage punchline when you least expect it.

Jost took over the desk in 2014, initially appearing somewhat stiff next to seasoned cast members. But as he settled into a long-running partnership with Michael Che, the segment evolved into something closer to a weekly roast of the news, themselves, and each other. They even built recurring bits where they swapped scripts and forced one another to read jokes that were wildly offensive to their own demographics Jost reading racially charged lines, Che reading jokes that make Jost look creepy or pathetic. It’s become one of the segment’s most viral formats because it plays into everyone’s pre-existing opinions of the duo.

In 2021, Jost officially broke Seth Meyers’s record as the longest-serving Weekend Update anchor, cementing him as a core part of modern SNL history. For better or worse, when people think of the current era of the show, they picture Jost’s very symmetrical face.

2. Head Writer & Sketch Architect

Ranking just behind Weekend Update is Jost’s less visible but equally important role as head writer. He’s spent years shaping the overall tone of the show, especially its political cold opens and topical sketches. That means when you have a strong season of sharp, well-structured sketches, Jost often deserves some of the credit and when an episode feels uneven, a portion of the blame lands at his feet as well.

The most generous opinion is that he’s helped SNL navigate a chaotic political era with jokes that balance absurdity and commentary. His critics argue that the show can lean too safe or centrist, and since Jost wears the “head writer” badge, he becomes a lightning rod for those complaints. Either way, he’s deeply tied to the show’s identity, not just as a performer but as one of its primary architects.

3. “A Very Punchable Face” and the Written Jost

If you only know Jost from Weekend Update, his memoir A Very Punchable Face is often what changes people’s rankings of him. The book is highly self-deprecating, full of stories about growing up on Staten Island, working at SNL, nearly dying while backpacking, and passing out in a dog costume. Reviewers and fans consistently describe it as both funny and surprisingly heartfelt, with a tone that’s more chaotic and vulnerable than his TV persona.

On the “Colin Jost approval scale,” the memoir often bumps skeptics up at least one letter grade. People who found him bland on TV discover he’s actually very aware of looking like “the villain in an ’80s teen movie” and mines that image for comedy. It’s a pretty effective way to convert casual viewers into genuine fans.

4. Film Roles, Live Shows, and the Staten Island Ferry Era

Movie-wise, Jost’s career is more in the “fun side quest” category than main storyline. His roles in films like How to Be Single and Tom & Jerry are supporting but on-brand: he usually plays a slightly awkward, well-meaning guy who gets hit by metaphorical or literal chaos.

Then there’s the extremely specific project that boosted his internet ranking: in 2022 he and Pete Davidson bought a decommissioned Staten Island ferry with dreams of turning it into an entertainment venue. Even Johansson has jokingly suggested they should just sell it already. On the unofficial “Comedy Gambles That Might Be Genius or a Disaster” list, the ferry sits near the top.

Jost’s stand-up and live tour appearances round out this tier. Reviews and fan reports often describe him as looser and more naturally edgy on stage than on television, which reinforces the idea that the suit-and-tie version is a toned-down character, not the whole person.

The Internet’s Spiciest Opinions on Colin Jost

Spend five minutes in an SNL comments section and you’ll see three dominant Colin Jost takes emerge:

• “He’s secretly one of the sharpest joke writers on TV.” This camp points to his long tenure, his contributions behind the scenes, and the way Weekend Update routinely produces the show’s tightest punchlines.
• “He’s fine, but Michael Che carries him.” These fans think Che’s unpredictability and risk-taking overshadow Jost’s more controlled style. Articles and rankings that pit their jokes against each other often treat the pair like a friendly rivalry.
• “He looks like a guy who would write you up for being five minutes late to your internship.” This is less an opinion and more a vibe, but it shows how much his appearance shapes people’s expectations of his comedy.

The recent seasons of SNL have also featured Jost delivering some unexpectedly dark jokes from political scorched-earth to references that make the studio audience audibly gasp. A recent example: a bleak punchline on Weekend Update about Jeffrey Epstein’s island that leaned into black humor so hard the crowd groaned before laughing. Whether you thought the joke went too far probably determines where you rank him on the “fearless vs. tasteless” spectrum.

In short, opinions on Colin Jost polarize around how comfortable you are with a comedian who looks like he should be hosting a morning show but sometimes tells jokes like he’s trying to get banned from brunch.

Where Does Colin Jost Rank Among Weekend Update Anchors?

Trying to officially rank Weekend Update anchors is asking for a comment-section civil war, but we can at least place Jost on the timeline. The segment has had a long list of hosts including Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Dennis Miller, Norm Macdonald, Tina Fey, Jimmy Fallon, Amy Poehler, and Seth Meyers each representing a different era and flavor of fake news.

If we’re talking influence, Fey and Poehler’s tenure permanently changed the tone of Update, injecting sharper political satire and a conversational style that every successor has had to respond to. Norm Macdonald remains the patron saint of deadpan brutality. Seth Meyers refined the modern monologue-driven format and set a high bar for joke density.

Colin Jost ranks best in the category of consistency over time. His jokes rarely implode, even when they’re risky. He has a strong sense for structure: tight setups, clean tags, and callbacks that reward regular viewers. Paired with Che, he helped make Update feel like a full comedy show inside the show, complete with recurring characters, bits like Joke Swap, and the meta-joke of two guys roasting each other’s careers in real time.

So is he the single best Weekend Update anchor? That depends on what you value. But if you’re ranking based on longevity, craftsmanship, and how often the segment goes viral the next morning, Jost sits comfortably in the top tier of the modern era.

Why Colin Jost Works (Even If You’re Not a Superfan)

The Colin Jost discourse often comes down to expectations. People take one look at his resume Harvard, Lampoon, SNL head writer, married to Scarlett Johansson and assume he must be smug or detached. But much of his comedy leans on undercutting that image: stories of embarrassment, physical mishaps, and genuine emotional moments, especially in his writing and stand-up.

His strongest trait might be his willingness to be the butt of the joke. Whether it’s Che making him read an outrageous line about himself on national TV or Jost recounting in his memoir how many times he’s humiliated himself in front of his heroes, he doesn’t insist on looking cool. That humility, combined with precise joke-writing, is why so many critics and readers have called A Very Punchable Face unexpectedly warm and human.

In the end, ranking Colin Jost is less about putting a number next to his name and more about recognizing how he fits into modern comedy: part traditional news-desk host, part self-sabotaging storyteller, part Staten Island guy who accidentally ended up living a superhero-adjacent life.

Bonus: Experiences and Anecdotes Around Colin Jost Rankings & Opinions

To really understand how people rank Colin Jost, you have to look beyond credits and headlines and into lived experiences the stories fans tell after live tapings, book signings, and surprise stand-up sets.

Talk to someone who’s attended a live SNL show, and you often hear a similar pattern: on camera, Jost is crisp and composed; off camera, during commercial breaks, he’s surprisingly loose. Audience members describe him joking with the band, checking in with Che, and occasionally cracking a line that’s a little too weird or dark to make it to air. That contrast the polished broadcast persona versus the looser, backstage comedian is a big reason some fans rank him higher than casual viewers do.

Readers of A Very Punchable Face share another common experience. Many say they started the book neutral or mildly skeptical about him and finished as genuine fans. The chapters about his mom’s work with the FDNY, his injuries and misadventures abroad, and his early SNL years give a sense of how hard he’s worked and how often things went wrong along the way. People who previously saw him as “overly lucky” tend to soften once they’ve read about the years of grinding and near-disasters behind the scenes.

Then there are the reactions to his edgier jokes. Some viewers vividly remember the first time Jost dropped a line on Weekend Update that made the studio gasp before laughing a moment that can permanently shift someone’s ranking of him from “safe network guy” to “actually willing to go there.” The recent Epstein-island joke is a perfect example: some found it too dark, others thought it was exactly the point of satire. Either way, it made people reconsider their assumptions about how far he’s willing to push the format.

Opinions also get shaped by the parasocial experience of seeing Jost and Scarlett Johansson interact in interviews. Clips of them gently roasting each other like her joking on morning TV that he should probably sell the Staten Island ferry feed into this perception of him as the slightly dorky partner in a power couple. For some viewers, that makes him more relatable; for others, it intensifies the sense that he’s living on an absurdly lucky timeline.

Even comedy nerds who obsess over SNL’s internal politics have their own Jost stories. They’ll compare episodes where he was deeply involved in writing versus weeks when he seemed more focused on Update, debate which political sketches clearly carry his fingerprints, and argue about when his tenure as co–head writer was at its peak. Those conversations may not trend on social media, but they shape his standing among the fans who are most invested in the show’s long-term evolution.

What all these experiences have in common is that they move Colin Jost out of the flat category of “SNL news guy” and into something more three-dimensional. People don’t just rank him on joke quality; they rank him on vulnerability, risk-taking, and how much he seems in on the joke of his own life. Whether he lands in your personal top five or not, it’s hard to deny that he’s become one of the defining comedy voices of the current SNL era and that the debate about him is part of the fun.

So the final verdict? Colin Jost is less a simple score out of 10 and more an ongoing argument one that plays out every Saturday night, every book review, every time a new clip of Joke Swap drops online. And honestly, for a comedian, being permanently debatable might be the best ranking of all.

Conclusion

Colin Jost’s rankings and opinions are all over the map because his career is, too. He’s a writer, performer, memoirist, ferry co-owner, and accidental heartthrob, all wrapped in one extremely ironed suit. Some viewers will always see him as the safe, network-friendly straight man; others rank him as an underrated craftsman whose best work lives in scripts, books, and live shows rather than viral clips.

But if you zoom out, Jost has quietly built a resume that most comedians would sell their punchlines for: decades at SNL, a record-breaking Weekend Update run, a bestselling memoir, and a place in the cultural conversation that ensures people keep arguing about him online. And in comedy, the only truly bad ranking is being forgotten.

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