YouTuber Joel Haver On Similarities Between 'SNL' Charmin Bears Sketch and His Video

Haver acknowledges that similarities between his own YouTube video and a sketch from Saturday Night Live's season 48 premiere could be a "wild coincidence"

YouTuber Speaks Over amid Allegations SNL Stole His Sketch: ‘Pretty Alarming’
Photo: snl

Joel Haver claims a sketch seen on Saturday Night Live's season 48 premiere bore a striking resemblance to one of his own comedy videos.

On Monday, the 26-year-old YouTuber posted a video calling out the "pretty alarming" commonalities between the SNL bit and his own work.

"Usually when these things come up, I'm able to see that it's the same concept but they took it somewhere different or it's similar but you can give them some leeway," he said. "But this one was a little weird. I was like, 'Wow, that's very similar.'"

Both the SNL sketch — starred host Miles Teller alongside cast members Kenan Thompson, Heidi Gardner and Bowen Yang — and Haver's animated video feature the son of two Charmin Bears who wants to leave the family business in order to pursue a career in dance.

Haver did acknowledge the similarities between the two could simply be a "wild coincidence."

"When it comes to these stealing accusations, I always err on the side of coincidence," he said. "I think parallel thinking does happen more often than not."

A source close to SNL confirmed to PEOPLE that that it was a case of parallel thinking.

In his video, Haver continued, "When it comes to the Charmin bears thing, there's a lot of coincidences that would have to line up to make it truly a coincidence, but I don't think it was malicious. It was either a subconscious borrowing from somebody on their writers' staff who saw my video, or it was a wild coincidence."

Haver also noted that, as a YouTuber with more than one million subscribers, he's in "a position to not be bothered by" the similarities.

"If I still was a smaller creator, which I was for a long time, I could see it rubbing me the wrong way," he said.

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SNL will return on Oct. 8 with Brendan Gleeson as host and Willow as the musical guest.

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