Move over SNL, there are new skits in town.

Telecommunications major Matt Farber and environmental policy major Charlie Mulligan are making their mark at Penn State through their relatable skits and content via TikTok. The two, also known as “Croveranalyze” on TikTok, have gained a massive following over the past few months with their comedic, college-orientated skits.

Having been best friends for over a decade, the two Maryland natives joined forces their sophomore year of high school in 2020, amid COVID-19, brainstorming ideas for content they could post on TikTok. But first, the task at hand was to come up with a new username that fully encapsulated the brand they were trying to build.

“We knew we wanted sort of a punny name,” Mulligan said. “I have a dog named Crover, and so it’s a part of the word ‘overanalyze’ since we were overanalyzing sports takes.”

The duo initially started posting content relating to sports and gained instant engagement within the sports community.

In efforts to generate a wider audience, Farber and Mulligan expanded into broader topics and started creating skits about life in high school and pop culture trends.

“We were just bored, and we started off making sports videos,” Farber said. “And then, we just kept doing it. We started to make more skits and it really took off from there… We kind of noticed that if we made [videos] that weren’t sports, it appeals to more people to get more views and likes… It was hard to think of ideas for just sports fans.”

Once college decision day rolled around, the two ultimately committed to Penn State, making the decision to continue creating skits a no-brainer. Through making their skits and learning the ins and outs of TikTok, Farber found his passion for content-creating, leading him to study telecommunications.

With nearly 50,000 followers on TikTok before arriving on campus, Farber and Mulligan worked together to find new ways to create skits that appealed to college students after taking a break at the end of their senior year of high school.

However, given that they lived in different residential areas, posting content took the back burner as they knew they needed to adjust to life in their new home.

“We took a little hiatus for a little while,” Mulligan said. “Once we got here, for the first couple months we would make them every couple of weeks, but we were probably posting 10 times a month max. Sometime in January, we started posting every day, and there’s just been exponential growth.”

After their break and starting to get the hang of college life, Farber and Mulligan began meeting twice a week to grind out brainstorming and create skits their peers could relate to.

Their creative process consists of turning content they see online and aligning it to their brand and even turning their own inside jokes into skits.

“The funniest TikToks are the ones where it’s a joke that we have that we kind of create into something else,” Farber said. “And, when we’re just laughing while making it, that’s the best way to go about it. That’s like our game.”

Since the beginning of the spring semester, the duo has been posting skits every day, which helped grow their following. From just a little over one month of consistently posting, they gained over 15,000 followers, giving them the motivation to keep the content flowing.

More recently, Farber and Mulligan have noticed more of their peers coming across their videos, giving them hope that maybe one day they can be recognized and represent Penn State.

“There have been people in the past, like Katie Feeney and Brad Kraut, I knew for being Penn State creators before we even got here,” Farber said. “I think it would be cool being able to represent a whole college like that.”

Every so often, the two run into students who recognized them from the platform around campus, making all the efforts and the behind-the-scenes of their skits well worth it.

“When you see the numbers, you don’t really understand that these are real people until you have random people you’ve never seen before who know who you are,” Mulligan said. “It’s just kind of a surreal but super cool feeling that helps keep us going.”

With the two living together their sophomore year, brainstorming and creating will be even easier for them.

As their freshman year comes to an end, Farber and Mulligan have no intentions of slowing down and hope to continue expanding their brand throughout the rest of their time at Penn State.

“Some people have a lot of success from this and they make a lot of money, but at the end of the day, I just like making videos and seeing how people react to them,” Farber shared. “That’s my joy.”