Prior to hosting Saturday Night Live (s48e12), Pedro Pascal was considered by (some) young women to be TikTok's favorite Daddy and\or "daddy of the moment", which prompted CT Jones' Rolling Stone post "Creator of the Viral Pedro Pascal Fancam Explains Why the Actor Is TikTok's Favorite Daddy". Jones wrote:
Every Sunday night, fans of Pedro Pascal can tune in to HBO to watch the Chilean actor star as the stoic, sexy, reluctant father figure Joel in The Last Of Us. But on TikTok, weekly episodes aren’t enough — stanning Pascal is a full-time gig. Fans on the app have crowned 47-year-old Pascal the “daddy of the moment” in the only way it knows how: inundating For You pages everywhere with fan edits.
Jones explained that a fan edit is like a synonym of fancam, which is like a synonym of thirst trap.
Jones: As for fancams, they are when TikTokers curate: "[...] videos of a popular actor and smash them together into a short but heavily edited clip full of transitions, filters, and of course, a rousing backing track [...] their most popular forms usually serve one purpose: a thirst trap. Cambridge Dictionary: thirst trap noun | a statement by or photograph of someone on social media that is intended to attract attention or make people who see it sexually interested in them
Jones related that, despite being 45-years-old, "[...] if there is one thing people on TikTok can agree on, it’s that Pedro Pascal is smoking hot."
@dvcree petitioning to be your fav pedro pascal editor #pedropascal #pedropascaledit #agentwhiskey #kingsman #dvcree ♬ save a horse ride a cowboy - ᖭི༏ᖫྀ
Jones shared that one of the most popular Pascal fancams was created by TikTok user @dvcree. @dvcree's TikTok "smashed" together clips of Pascal from Agent Whiskey in Kingsman 2: The Golden Circle. The TikTok began with Pascal's character sharing with Halle Berry's character, “I got a six-pack of cold ones on ice, and my roomie’s out all night, so you can scream my name as loud as you need to sugar!”
As of the writing of this post, that TikTok had over 21 million views, over 2 million likes, and was saved almost 1 million times. (Jones related that saves are "one of the biggest signs of thirst success on TikTok".)
On the red carpet for the premier of The Last Of Us, Pascal was asked, "You know, you're the daddy of the Internet, right? Before answering, Pascal read a tweet from Ally (@merrinluvr) whom tweeted: "I call Pedro Pascal a DILF and think he's my cool slutty father" Pascal replied, "Yup. I am your cool, slutty daddy." Thus, unlike Dr. Phil who adjured his young female fans to stop calling him daddy, Pascal has embraced his DILF status.
Oxford Languages: DILF noun | a sexually attractive older man, typically one who has children. Urban Diction: acronym | "Dad I'd Like to F***". A dilf is any man (typically between the ages of 30-50) who is incredibly attractive and has kids.
Always aware of the zeitgeist, the writers of Saturday Night Live wrote the skit "Fancam Assembly" - but with a twist. Here's the skit's synopsis posted on YouTube: "A teacher (Pedro Pascal) can't figure out why his students are obsessed with making fancams of him and the rest of the school staff." That's correct. In the skit, Pascal plays Mr. Ben - a high school teacher. And the fancans (i.e., thirst traps) were made by his students.
In the skit, during the Technology Use school assembly, Mr. Ben told the 14-year-old students, "Do not make fancams of school staff. Like this." In one example from "thousands" of TikToks that Mr. Ben projected to the assembled students, "sparkly fast romantic montages" of him in the classroom and in the school's hallway were smashed together with hearts.
One student responded to Mr. Ben's demands that the fancams cease with, "But we make them because you are our beloved, and you have us in a chokehold."
And another student explained that COVID made them make Mr. Ben daddy, "Because COVID lock[ed] us down when we are 11 [sic] and now we are 14, so now we have to make you daddy."
Unsurprisingly, this is not the first time we've written a post were the two motifs (i.e., The Daddy Thing and Hot for Teacher) were combined. For example, we wrote about BuzzFeed's post "13 Really Hot [High School] Teachers That Will Have You Begging For Detention. Yes, Mr. Smith. I’ll gladly stay after class" that re-posted a number of photos that were taken by high school students of their "hot" teachers, which were posted to Tumblr, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. Some of the hashtags that accompanied the photos were: #Hot teachers, #DADDY AF and #FUX ME ZADDYYYY.
