Please Stop Mixing Up Bowen Yang and Joel Kim Booster

Despite the fact that they look nothing alike, people keep confusing comedians Bowen Yang and Joel Kim Booster. It’s actually pretty easy to tell them apart if you have at least one working eye, a modicum of critical-thinking skills, and didn’t sleep through your mandated DEI training in 2020. Sadly, this is not the case for everyone, and people continue to refer to Yang as Booster and vice versa.

Last week, in an article about Julianna Margulies’s bigoted statements about the Israel-Palestine conflict, The Hollywood Reporter included a tweet of Booster’s as an example of a notable celebrity speaking out against the actress. However, they also referred to him as a “Saturday Night Live comedian.” Yang is the one on SNL. 

Y’all. Isn’t it your literal job to tell people in my industry apart??? Please use my preferred credit, Saturday Night Live Comedian’s Friend!! https://t.co/reUn1qbhNJ pic.twitter.com/eycValD22l

— Joel Kim Booster (@ihatejoelkim) December 1, 2023

Yang addressed the confusion on his podcast, Las Culturistas. During the “I Don’t Think So, Honey” segment of the show, Yang’s co-host, Matt Rogers, called out Margulies for her comments. The SNL star agreed and added: “Also, I don’t think so, honey, Hollywood Reporter for still confusing me and Joel Kim Booster in an article about this whole Julianna Margulies thing. An article that is reporting on racism.”

“How ironic is that? It made me so upset,” Rogers said. “It’s an article reporting on racism and then you do the racist bullshit of ‘Saturday Night Live comedian Joel Kim Booster.’” Yang noted that this was, in fact, the second time THR has confused the two. The first was in 2019, when a tweet from the trade publication shared a photo of Booster alongside an article about Yang’s hiring at SNL.

You’d think this story would end there, but no. In a post recapping all of this — and declaring that the comedians are “two very different comedians and men” — Out still managed to confuse the two.

The deep irony of this post is Out ALSO misidentifying us. What is happening. This feels like a social experiment. https://t.co/VjG3mxTIVF pic.twitter.com/NnmDQcoVV8

— Joel Kim Booster (@ihatejoelkim) December 6, 2023

The post has since been updated with a correction that reads:  “An earlier version of this story misattributed a quote from Yang’s podcast to Booster.” Big yikes all around.

What’s odd about this situation is that it’s really not hard to tell Yang and Booster apart. They don’t look similar, their comedy styles are different, and one of them even wears glasses. It’s much easier to tell them apart than, say, Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel. How on earth are you gonna expect me to tell two straight, white late-night hosts named Jimmy apart? Now that is hard.