I think the problem is taking two separate photos from two different events on different days and thinking people would put them together.

I bet you could find all sorts of separate photos of musicians from different events where one has armor and another has a red cape.

Okay, this pretty much helps, but now I don’t know what a VMA or an SNL is.

I’m going to go with “Viking Marauder Awards”, a yearly event where people re-enact the sacking of the Lindesfarne Monastery etc, via the medium of song and dance (and pyrotechnics).

and “Sitting Near Larry”, a weekly TV programme where a bloke called Larry sits down somewhere, and then semi-famous people come and sit near him and perform things. Larry has never heard of any of them, so gives them well-meaning but slightly patronising advice. Larry is just off-screen in the image shown above.

I’m old enough to have been a fan of Buffy, but didn’t watch TV back then. I also enjoy some modern pop music but, in the vast majority of cases, have never seen the artists. I’m also terminally bad at faces even if I have seen them (I’ve had to ask my wife whether a picture of her was her; she took it well).

I did actually recognize Alyson Hanigan, since she has a few distinctive expressions and features, but had no idea of the rest.

All that said to say: thanks for the explanation; me not getting the joke or reference doesn’t mean it was a bad one.