Featured Image Credit: NBC
Topics: Saturday Night Live, Film and TV, Viral
Emily Brown
They say that every day's a school day, and today's lesson is all about the term 'Debbie Downer'.
While not exactly the nicest way to refer to someone, it's probably a term you've heard or used a few times in life when someone's being particularly pessimistic, and constantly reminding you that the glass is half empty, rather than half full.
It's used in day-to-day conversation, in books and on TV shows, proving that it's successfully made its way into our terminology.
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But how did it get there? Was there just some woman called Debbie who constantly moaned about everything back in the olden days?
As it turns out, the phrase is much more recent than that. It actually came from a TV show - one I'm sure you'll have heard of.
One X user blew people's minds when they made the revelation, writing: "finding out the term “Debbie downer” was coined on SNL is one of those real facts that do not seem congruent with the world."
Yep, the nickname originated from a sketch on Saturday Night Live, and if you're a fan of the show you might even be familiar with it already.
The sketch focuses on Debbie Downer, played by Rachel Dratch, as she presents herself as just about the most miserable person out there. She even managed to make Disney World terrible.
While you might have thought you'd grown up hearing your parents use the term Debbie Downer, it was actually first used in a 2004 episode of SNL hosted by Lindsay Lohan.
The glass-shatter realization that the term is only 20 years old has left people well and truly stunned - so much so that some are refusing to believe it was invented by Saturday Night Live.
"It just really feels like it has its origins in the persecution of a late 1890s irishwoman named Deborah O’Malley or something and not a Rachel Dratch character. And yet?," the original X post read.
Another person responded: "i feel like i’m being gaslit because i definitely used that term (along with Negative Nelly) years and years before SNL."
However, while the nickname 'Negative Nancy' - or 'Nelly', if you're that X user - did seem to predate Debbie Downer, there really doesn't seem to be any evidence of the term being used before 2004.
Dictionary.com explains: "While a downer has been used to refer to a “depressing person” since at least the 1970s, the name Debbie Downer was popularized by a hit Saturday Night Live sketch starring Rachel Dratch, who played a character named Debbie Downer. This character consistently ruins a group’s fun by sharing unsolicited sad remarks.
"The original Debbie Downer sketch aired on May 1, 2004 with Dratch’s character interrupting a family vacation to Walt Disney World with negative contributions to each conversation topic."
So there you have it - your fun fact for the weekend!