How I got brain rot: Watching the sketch comedy of Key and Peele

Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peel’s body of sketch comedy is not brain-rotting. The writing is razor-sharp, the sketches are impeccably designed and filmed and the two actors’ performances have few equals in the field.

But sometimes, brain rot is not as much about what you watch as how you watch it. And when I hit replay for the tenth time on the five-seconds between 1.15 and 1.20 on the timeline of this sketch about two British anthropologists bragging about their sexual exploits (very NFSW, obviously, like much of the pair’s work), just to hear Key’s goggle-eyed, perfectly sputtered delivery of the line “I was completely embarrassed by the entire affair!”, I had to admit I was firmly in brain rot territory.

Not every sketch hits the mark, but the duo have made almost 300, many of them among the greatest ever created. And at least twice a year, I will spiral down into their hilarious, weird, sometimes frightening world, and lose hours of what could have been productive time.

Among the sketches I most frequently return to are one about an introverted gang member trying to convince others he can be “the crazy one”, another about two college students in a genuinely menacing face-off over who gets to be...

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