Maria Comstock’s Personal SNL: A Cambridge Content Creator You’ve Definitely Seen Before

Chances are you’ve seen her on a “For You” page, pretending to be Elon Musk’s dream date or interviewing a retired combat spy.

With over 150k followers on one account and over 1.7 million on the other, Maria Comstock has become a familiar face on TikTok for a wide range of fans. Specializing in POV sketches on her comedy account @mariacomstock, Comstock has entertained viewers by gently parenting conservatives and portraying sorority girls since she started her first account in college — her passion for political comedy shining through in every video.

“I love comedy. I mean, I had two dreams when I was eight years old. One of them was to make opposition ads, which I currently do — I work in politics — and my other one was to be on SNL. And so this is my little personal SNL where I can have my own little skits,” Comstock said in an interview with The Crimson.

Comstock’s fame skyrocketed early on in her content creation career, which makes it all the more surprising that she got her first phone at age 18. Her newfound internet stardom had to do with the fact that, just a year before, she found out her father was a spy.

“I overheard him, actually, telling my history teacher. So I’m like, you’re gonna tell some random person you’re a spy and not your own daughter? That’s so rude,” Comstock said.

It was this moment that set Comstock down a new creative path — unbeknownst to her at the time — that led to the creation of her second account, @mariaisabellecomstock. Before she became famous for interviewing former spies, she began by interviewing her father for fun.

“The questions I asked were: Are birds real? What’s in Wyoming? Just completely nonsensical questions, because he also wouldn’t talk to me about the spy days. So I’m like, ‘I can’t ask. I know he’s not gonna answer me.’ And that video got 19 views, and then I was so bored the next day, made another one, and that video got 3 million views the next day. And so I’m like, ‘Oh, well, all right, let me do Part 3.’ And just yesterday, I think we did Part 90,” Comstock said.

This first video kickstarted a TikTok series with an intriguing premise: asking former intelligence workers their opinions about current affairs.

“When I was a junior or a senior, I got reached out to by this agency in New York called spy scape. And it’s a museum, but they have a branch called Spy Acts, where it’s a firm for ex-spies that helps them land consulting jobs and book deals, helping them consult for all the spy movies and spy TV shows — like, ‘Criminal Minds’ hires spies to make sure everything’s legit. And so they have a profile to people online, and they’re like, ‘Alright, Maria, who do you want to interview?’” she said.

Since then, Comstock has spoken to retired Mossad agents, a former CIA directorate of operations, an FBI spy hunter, and more.

“I got to go out and MC a spy festival, which now I’ve done twice, which is, I mean, I didn’t know there were spy festivals five years ago, but it grew through there. And then when I moved to DC, also, it’s just the absolute capital of spies. And so we would just get drinks and chat about, you know, the coups they’ve led over Caesar salad. It’s crazy,” she said.

Although the series started as a casual way to stay busy, interviewing former intelligence officers comes with its own set of challenges — especially when interviewees are privy to classified government information and have special training to maintain these secrets.

“I really don’t ask a lot of these spies about their operations or their past that much because it’s uncomfortable for everyone involved; everyone’s going to prison. And so I just kind of use the authenticity of being someone on the inside and seeing how these operations worked, and using authenticity to inform their viewpoints on current events. And it depends on the agency: CIA, I’ll ask a lot about foreign affairs, whereas FBI, I’ll ask a lot about US political events,” Comstock said.

But there are some aspects of Comstock’s interviews that stay consistent, regardless of the interviewee’s specialized background.

“I like to have some of the same questions in almost every interview. My followers, for some reason, love aliens — and so I always ask them about aliens, and I will say, every single spy, except for one, has said aliens are real,” she said.

Comstock highlighted the unique perspectives of her interviewees, noting that, though they come from across the political spectrum, their work as spies is at the root of a lot of shared priorities.

“They all really have the same ideals and priorities of national security, national safety, all of the above. And so even if they’re Republican, Democrat, whatever, they all kind of come at it from the same way. And I think it’s really interesting, because they don’t really let their politics get involved. They just let their training lead their thought processes.”

Although the conversations Comstock holds on her spy profile are informative, with nuanced political perspectives and clever insight, her focus remains on entertainment.

“I try and have one light hearted question per video: A, to make it more fun for the spies, just to get them more comfortable on film. And then, B, my media is also for entertainment. It’s not solely educational,” she said.

When creating her content, Comstock finds it important to engage with her audience, staying true to her claims of asking her interviewees,“What people REALLY want to know,” as she writes in one post.

“I source most of my questions from the comment section,” Comstock said. “People love the macabre. So people always ask about World War III, people always ask about civil wars, and people always ask about, like, the Epstein list — that kind of thing. And so we will address it, because everyone wants to know.”

Regardless of what she chooses to pursue, Comstock sees there being a political undertone to her work. With politics being so fundamental to her upbringing and current life — especially as a UC Berkeley graduate with a major in political science and two parents whose second date was a peace rally — Comstock hopes her future will allow her similar opportunities to comment on current events, especially if she can entertain people while doing so.

Although she is undeniably good at what she does, Comstock dreams of pursuing entertainment outside of current content creation, while simultaneously maintaining her accounts for millions of viewers.

“I would love to go into more of the film industry and acting. I mean, again, I was the Princess in ‘The Princess and the Pea’ when I was eight, and that was my peak. But I’m like, ‘Maybe we can go bigger than that,’” she said.