HOOVER, Ala. (WIAT) — Ellen Skrmetti’s dream has always been to be a standup comedian, but searching for her target audience was key.

The Mississippi born and Alabama based comedian has grown in popularity on Instagram through two famous series, “If the queen died in the south” and “Hey Jesus, it’s me.”

“I knew that my audience of fun, southern women weren’t necessarily going to be at the club so I thought let me go on Instagram, create skits and find my people and then maybe I could get them out to a comedy club,” Skrmetti said.

That is why she started looking for her audience on Instagram in January of 2022. Skrmetti said it was slow as molasses until she started a skit about if Queen Elizabeth II had died in the south, her funeral wouldn’t have interrupted Arsenal’s Europa League contest against PSV Eindhoven in September of 2022.

“My husband was upset because there was no Arsenal soccer game played that weekend because they took the week off for the queen,” Skrmetti said. “I joked with him that if you die in the south, she would already be kicking up daisies right now. It was the idea that we bury our people very fast – the idea was grandma’s not doing too good – we have to get her in the ground before Alabama kickoff.”

Skrmetti said following that video, everything started to take off. She did the sketch with 1,100 followers on Instagram and is now almost at 185,000. Now, she is traveling across the south with several appearances planned this fall.

You can catch Skrmetti Saturday night at the StarDome Comedy Club Broadway Room at 7 p.m., located at 1818 Data Drive in Hoover.