First of all, yeah, come at me. “Seinfeld” is only kinda-sorta funny, at best. Seinfeld himself is really not funny at all. His act is perpetually stuck between the oldschool, early 1950s-style, cigar-waving “hyuk-hyuk, get a load of all my jokes about women drivers” comedians and the post-Lenny Bruce era, where everything just boils down to telling boring “slice of life” stories with mildly clever exaggerations.
Seinfeld manages to pick and choose all the worst elements of both those eras and smush them together into a tremendously boring, un-funny standup act.
Annnnd that’s what gets translated to the show. Boring, egotistical, overly-New-York-focused, pretentious nonsense.
Like I said, come at me about that. I know people disagree. I truly do not care what you want to say to me, about it. You’re simply wrong. If you like his comedy or his show, you just have bad taste. I can’t fix that. I can’t change your mind. You can’t change mine, either. But I’m objectively correct that he and his comedy material both suck.
But the whole “show about nothing” thing is what really boils my ass. You can argue that the show wasn’t “about nothing,” in the first place. And that’s, like, whatever. There are valid arguments, there. In fact, I’d like to accept those arguments, then proceed under the assumption that the “show about nothing” concept really is a “show about nothing, and therefore about everything.”
This is the important point: the thing I disagree with is this wretched and insulting notion that “Seinfeld” was somehow a PIONEERING television show, in this context of being about nothing and/or everything.
That’s my problem. The claim that “Seinfeld” did any of that shit first. The implication is that all prior television, especially all prior comedies, were somehow locked into a “this is a show about a particular topic” mentality. And, like, “nobody had the GENIUS and the GUTS to make a freewheeling show about just, like, whatever topics came to the minds of the genius writers, and their groundbreaking stream-of-consciousness comedy process.”
That’s fucking horseshit. Horseshit of the highest fucking caliber.
I suppose these turd-brained fucksticks believe that “I Love Lucy” was about a Cuban guy who had a job as a bandleader and his wife, who sometimes tried to get into showbusiness. And “The Honeymooners” would be about a guy who has a job as a bus driver. And “Taxi” was a show about cab drivers, driving their cabs.
Of course, that’s not what those shows were ACTUALLY ABOUT. They were basically shows about nothing, just as much as “Seinfeld” was. They were often about relatable problems in domestic life, they were sometimes about people trying zany get-rich-quick schemes, they were sometimes about the fears and perils and hopes that surround pregnancy and childbirth, they were often about the uncertainty and passion and sacrifice that people put themselves through, for their budding careers, or their workaday jobs. And they were about a million other things that all fit the “show about nothing” mold BETTER than “Seinfeld” ever did.
I say they did it better, because they weren’t exclusively about sad, angry, borderline-psychopathic reprobates, who seem to have no goals or aspirations, beyond smirking and talking shit about people behind their backs, swilling coffee, and occasionally trying to get laid. They were shitty people, with shitty attitudes. I know that’s part of the joke…but it wears thin very quickly, and my point is that other shows did a similar “it’s a show about nothing…but really everything” theme, but their casts of characters WEREN’T entirely populated by malignant, fundamentally worthless narcissists.
Basically, I implore people to stop worshipping that fucking show, as if it was some kind of groundbreaking, high art. There were way better classic comedy shows than that piece of shit, from its own era and the TV eras before it.
Oh, and before you point out that I accused Seinfeld of being overly New York focused, but also used three other shows set in New York as counterexamples, I realized that just now.
And I don’t give a shit. I can keep going. “Green Acres” wasn’t really about farming. “The Bob Newhart Show” wasn’t really about psychiatry, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” wasn’t really about TV production, and “WKRP in Cincinnati” wasn’t really about radio production.
The shows about nothing and everything are THE MAJORITY of all the shows. Certainly, all the good ones. It’s harder for me to think of reversed examples, where the show is just what it was supposed to be “about.”
Like, yeah, “Flipper” really was about a fucking dolphin, and “The Flying Nun” really was about a flying fucking nun. And those shows fucking sucked.
I think I can consider my point thoroughly made.
Now, all you assholes can start typing abuse at me, for daring to dislike your idol. I won’t be reading that shit. Not sorry.
“The pitch for the show, the real pitch, when Larry and I went to NBC in 1988, was we want to show how a comedian gets his material. The show about nothing was just a joke in an episode many years later.”
-Jerry Seinfeld
The “show about nothing” is a joke meme taken from an episode. So there’s no point in ranting about something that never existed.
The jerk store called…
Same thing goes for ‘Curb Your Enthousiasm’. After all the raving reviews I figured I’d give it a try and immediately got the feeling it was the kind of show that ‘you’d have to get through the first five seasons’ before it got any good and it would just have some funny moments.
I just found myself thinking: is this it?
OH MY GOD, you saved me so much wasted time, with this comment!
I was just about on the verge of finally caving in, and finally trying to watch that shit.
My attitude, this whole time has been, like “okay, eventually I’m going to get caught up with enough of the other shit I’m watching and reading and doing, and I’m gonna watch ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm.’ But, as God is my witness, that shit better LITERALLY make me piss myself laughing, or I’m going to be pissed the fuck OFF.”
In other words, I had a feeling it was dramatically overrated, in exactly the way you’re describing.
Larry David’s humor hits the right notes for people who share his humor, which is apparently self deprecating cringe humor.
I love a good 25% of it for being relatable, but the rest is like “come on man, stop doing that to yourself”.
So do you think Friends brought more to the table then?
Compared to Seinfeld, yes. And it certainly wears the classic American “show about nothing and everything” mantle with more dignity and more overall quality.
I still think it’s overrated, too, which I suspect you suspected, about me. But truly, it’s not as overrated as “Seinfeld.”
“Friends” does have a lot of the same “holy shit, these characters are borderline psychopaths” energy, going on. As does “How I Met Your Mother,” which is another show set in New York, which I think is pretty dramatically overrated.
Lots of weirdly glorified psychopaths on “The Office,” as well. And I think that show is more catastrophically and pitifully overrated than all of these put together. But at least nobody really comes along claiming that it’s some kind of fundamental pioneer, in any important respect. I mean, I’m sure there are people out there who think the producers of “The Office” invented the concept of the mockumentary, but those people are simple and should be left alone.
Good grief. What the hell sitcomy type show did you even like from the 90s?? If you shit on NewsRadio then you need your own lesson in taste.
See, the thing is, I actually liked the more sitcomy type shows. I liked “Full House” and “Family Matters” and “Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper,” and “Dinosaurs” and “Martin” and “Perfect Strangers” and “Night Court” and “3rd Rock from the Sun” and some episodes of “Boy Meets World,” although it wasn’t my favorite. And I’m sure I’m leaving some out.
I disagree with the premise (which someone else brought up) that “Seinfeld” was automatically superior, because it diverged from all the “happy, constructive, happy-ending, everyone comes together and learns something at the end of the episode” type shows, like the ones I mentioned.
I’m not a turbo-cynical Gen-X-er, who is fully allergic to happy endings. I don’t think every character in every show has to be a genuine shithead, or else the show isn’t cool.
I also watched tons of other shit. I was (and am) a huge sci-fi nerd. I would have been happy if the whole 1980s and 1990s TV schedule had just been more and more Star Trek spinoffs, along with “The X-Files” and “American Gladiators,” just for variety. But I didn’t reject sitcoms, on some kind of pretentious “happy endings are lame” basis.
Oh my god, also “Brisco County, Jr.” That show flew under so many people’s radars. And it was basically a perfect combination of sitcom tropes and sci-fi and action/pulp tropes. Bruce Campbell at his fucking finest. Fuck yes.
“Full House” - Bad
“Family Matters” - Bad. Corporate comedy at its worst. ( “did I do that?” )
“Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper,” - Bad
“Dinosaurs” - really bad (with only the final episode to make it memorable)
“Martin” - good
“Perfect Strangers” - really, really bad
“Night Court” - good, but it’s premise was almost cheating because the cases allowed them to have a quick comedic trial premise jokes then back to the a or b storyline. If not for the joke trials, it would have been bad.
“3rd Rock from the Sun” - good
“Boy Meets World,” - bad
Briscoe County Junior - good
Your taste in comedy is on average bad and you should feel bad.
Meh.
I think you said you were born in 1980? Did you even know what sponge worthy meant when you were 15?
You OK, buddy?
I feel a little better, after venting about Seinfeld for twelve minutes.
…what else is this subverse supposed to be for? It’s the goddamned “Unpopular Opinion” place. Ranting about your strongly-held opinions is what you’re supposed to do, here.
And if I was overly nice about it, people wouldn’t feel free to disagree. So if I get my aggression and frustration out by taking a verbal shit on Jerry Seinfeld’s body of work, I benefit. And then other people benefit by coming along and verbally assaulting me, for doing that.
It’s like fucking Fight Club, except nobody gets any fucking concussions, and nobody gives a fuck if you talk about it.
I was going to go off on you about pitching about a show you don’t like and telling everyone they’re objectively wrong if they disagree, but then I noticed this is unpopular opinion. So, this is the right place. Carry on.
Well, it does make us wonder about your username.
I rant 1 percent of the time, so that I can be chill 99 percent of the time.
I could achieve the same effect with bourbon, but it would be much less healthy and DRAMATICALLY more expensive.
At least with bourbon you’d run less risk of being factually incorrect
Pfft. Not with the amount I’d consume.
I fully understand.
Oh god, I feel another essay coming on.
Dude typed a whole essay about how he doesn’t like a TV show from like 20-30 years ago…
I didn’t read any of it, but I’m sure none of it is groundbreaking. Like, some kids think literally everyone loved the stuff we call classics today.
Not liking Seinfeld isn’t anymore original or rare than not liking marvel movies, except for Earnest Goes to Camp there’s no piece of media everyone loves.
TvTropes has much longer and better essays on this subject
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny
I gave it a go, but had to bow out when I got to the My personal taste in entertainment is objectively correct bit lol
Yeah, I think he missed this is unpopular opinions. Not to mention that comedy is inherently subjective.
Are you recommending Earnest Goes to Camp?
…
I dont know if that was a joke or not.
But if you ever have to ask “is someone recommending Earnest goes to Camp?”
The answer is always yes.
You will laugh, you will love, you will cry. And afterwards you’ll likely be a better person.
And I know what you’re thinking, why would an Earnest P Worrel movie make me cry?
Will it help me find miak at this time of year?
I’d bet the OP is fairly young. To many younger people Seinfeld seems terrible, largely because everything since copied so many aspects of things it pioneered on general television and refined them. So Seinfeld seems like just a collection of poor imitations rather than the beginning for all of those being made better.
I thought about it, but on the other hand, I’ve yet to hear someone under a handful of decades old mention Lenny Bruce
What did it do? I’m not that young but didn’t watch it much as it wasn’t big in the UK.
I think it’s credited as one of, if not the first, show to flip the sitcom formula on it’s head in terms of protagonists. Before, shows were about good people having to deal with conflicts and coming out on top. Seinfeld was about bad people creating conflicts and then failing to resolve them. This is particularly evident in the finale when the show ends with them all in jail instead of each character getting their own happy ending.
That was one of the tenants of the show - “nobody learns”.
I also quickly stopped reading.
I never really watched Seinfeld. If it was on I saw a few minutes of it.
My problem is saying “you like this thing? Well you’re WRONG.”
You sound like a narcissistic child who can’t fathom the idea that some people like things you don’t like. Also this isn’t an unpopular opinion. Like, Seinfeld was a huge show 30 years ago. I would imagine a lot of people disliked it for whatever reasons you’re ranting about.
Wasn’t it more that Seinfeld cemented and standardized many concepts, rather than invented them?
Regardless, doing so or even creating an entirely new genre doesn’t make a show good. In fact, often a piece of media that makes an entire new genre or cements/standardizes a lot of concepts for a genre can suck because it’s all new or hasn’t been standardized yet, so there is a lot of floundering around to figure out how it all works
That’s actually a very good argument, in general terms.
However, I’d still argue that at least a dozen shows had already cemented and crafted the “show about nothing and anything and everything at once” concept, long before “Seinfeld” premiered.
ummm, like, tons of people really loved that show, dude. and still do, making the streaming rights continually the most expensive and sought after intellectual property in existence. i’m sure i share the greater hive minds feelings in saying we’re all terribly sorry you don’t enjoy it. you should ask for your money back.
Tons of people, you say? A greater hive mind of people, who all outnumber me, you say?
HMMMMMMMMMMM. IT’S ALMOST AS IF THAT WOULD MAKE MY OPINION…UHHHH…UNPOPULAR.
If that were the case, it would be FUCKING FORTUITOUS that I posted it in the subverse SPECIFICALLY FOR UNPOPULAR OPINIONS.
Honestly, what do you think people are supposed to post, here? I’m really asking you. Please tell me what you think people are supposed to post, in this place.
Just as a point of clarification, a critic of the show called it a “show about nothing”. Jerry took that and used it as the plot of the show within a show that he and George wrote the pilot to, Jerry! Then people started referring to Seinfeld that way, but it never was about nothing, in fact it usually had 2-3 storylines per episode that they found a way to converge at the end.
I get that you don’t like the show, but at least get your facts straight.
Exactly, Jerry and Larry David said something like “No learning no feelings” but I don’t believe they ever said it was a show about nothing.
I still watch Seinfeld every day. Hard disagree
You okay? I get the unpopular opinion and actually agree with some of it but damn you are angry that people love that show. Also, I don’t think you know what the word objectively means because your whole argument about Seinfeld not being funny is complete dependent on your personal feelings about his type of humor.
I agree that Seinfeld himself isn’t funny. I also agree that the show is clearly not about nothing. It’s a show about a group of friends getting themselves into ridiculous situations. I can however say that while your opinions are valid, Seinfeld factually is the most popular sitcom of the 90s.
Anyway, like you said, your mind isn’t going to be changed and neither are the minds of the millions of people who disagree with you. Thanks for the post.
I can take all of that on the chin, basically with the excuse that I was being somewhat hyperbolic, basically deliberately. I was certainly being deliberately provocative, when I used the word “objectively.”
I don’t consider myself to have been engaging in trolling, per se. It’s more of a conscious choice to be abrasive about my opinion, so that anyone who DEEPLY disagrees will get two general messages:
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If you want to “have a go at me,” as the Brits say, because you disagree with me, go ahead. I was rude enough that you won’t have to feel badly about it. It’s basically a roundabout sort of courtesy.
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On the other hand, my position is FULLY FUCKING ENTRENCHED, and you aren’t going to be able to just wiggle me around to your side, with a bit of finesse.
Isn’t it textbook trolling to be intentionally abrasive to provoke conflict?
Not the way I’m doing it. Trolls provoke conflict, in order to destroy any capacity for constructive discussion and stress everyone out.
I am expressing my unpopular opinion (importantly, in a place specifically marked out as a space for unpopular opinions) in a way that gives me emotional satisfaction, but also invites other people to “have a go at me,” if they strongly disagree.
Also, the specific tone that I chose invited a high level of unironic and, again, highly satisfying debate and examination of the issue. I think that’s also, at least in part, a result of that choice of tone. My abrasive tone communicated that this is a strong opinion that I’m holding, and you have to come at me with some really bulletproof, thought-provoking counter arguments, in order for me to really engage with you.
In other words, the boring middle ground is cut out. We’re either getting “HEY, FUCK YOU, I LOVE JERRY” or we’re getting a couple paragraphs of EXCELLENT POINTS, BEING MADE VERY WELL BY INTELLIGENT PEOPLE.
What we’re cutting out is the boring “nuh-uh, i kinda like Seinfeld, the soup nazi episode was cool” portions of the discussion, which are indeed boring.
Trolls want people to be sad and bored. I want people to either have an emotional release or an intellectual discussion.
I think it generated an interesting discussion, but that it was still trolling. You are a troll with self awareness - you should own it!
Maybe I’ve discovered some kind of halfway point, between trolling and productive discussion. Or maybe, like, being a self-aware troll really does fundamentally alter the whole situation, and it isn’t as harmful anymore.
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I’m just glad it made stars out of Julia Louis Dreyfus and Jason Alexander. Two immensely talented people who made the most out of their paper thin characters on the show.
Oof. Still gonna have to disagree. Mostly in Jason Alexander’s case.
The ONLY good thing he’s ever done was that one guest shot, on that one episode of “Star Trek: Voyager.” Everything else has been a complete face-plant failure, for the completely understandable reason that it was of poor quality.
I mean, look at what he’s doing right now. Just last night, I saw him in an ad for some godforsaken online poker app. I actually saw the ad twice, once as a YouTube preroll and once as an actual TV spot, during a hockey game. Either way, it was pretty pathetic, and he clearly does not know how to manage his money.
I’ve heard that “Veep” is a pretty good show, though, and Julia Louis Dreyfus remains an integral part of the “Christmas Vacation” movie.
He’s done a lot of great broadway/stage work. He was one of the original cast members in Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along.” He can sing, dance, and act.
But I agree he often slums it in commercials and I don’t know why. I guess he’s gotta pay the rent.
I genuinely didn’t know that. I am basically allergic to musical theater, so it’s just way outside my whole universe. I’m perfectly willing to allow that he’s a treasure on the stage.
But yeah, he must have a major drug habit or an expensive-ass gaggle of mistresses, or some shit like that, the way he just washes up in bottom-shelf commercials. I’m glad to know he IS doing other stuff, because those poker ads were actually starting to bum me out. I mean, I don’t have anything against him, personally.
In Voyager I thought it was cringe that they had to go to extreme anti-George and make him the near smartest guy in the Galaxy (only to be outsmarted by Janeway of course).
Fair critique, for sure. But his smugness was just so perfect. It was just a masterclass. Motherfucker was basically like “look at my face. It’s the most punchable face in the universe, but you can’t punch it because I’m a hologram right now,” but he’d say all that just by smirking at end of a line.
And the hyper-dimensional ultra-space-whale was pretty cool, too.
Congratulations on the unpopular opinion. What mostly sets Seinfeld apart from other sitcoms that came before and what earned it “show about nothing” is that it didn’t have any “teachable moments”. The characters are shitty people doing shitty things who never grow, they never change or learn a moral lesson, they just stay as crappy people throughout the show’s run.
Of course in today’s environment with IASIP it’s just commonplace (IASIP is a spiritual descendent of Seinfeld), but when Seinfeld came out, no matter what kind of zany/grumpy/snide/mean characters were on a show, everyone came together at the end and learned a lesson about X. Other shows that were out the same year as Seinfeld were Family Matters, Saved by the Bell, and Coach, that’s the environment it existed in. Today it’s all just commonplace, but at the time we were coming out of 80s tv and it’s shitty moralizing attitude about everything.
First of all, you’ve made a whole two paragraphs of really excellent points. I respect your point of view, for the most part. However, I draw your attention to this opinion:
80s tv and it’s shitty moralizing attitude about everything
Might I assume that you fall somewhere squarely in the Gen-X age bracket? To the perpetually cynical minds of Gen-X-ers, happy endings and morality tales are like salt to a slug. They burn you. I get that.
I was born in 1980, so I fall into either the youngest cohort of the X-ers or the eldest cohort of the Millenials. Therefore, I saw all those shows, but I had a different perspective.
My teenage cynicism had not fully kicked in, when all those classic family sitcoms were on the air. I mean, mainly because I was 9 or 10 when most of these shows were premiering. My sarcastic and cynical phase was coming along, little by little, as that era progressed…but it didn’t fully land until later, and therefore it didn’t slam down on those shows, and make me disgusted by them.
I don’t consider shows that have happy endings to be the opposite of high quality. I don’t think formulaic sitcoms where everyone comes together at the end of the episode are automatically bad. And I certainly don’t consider the opposite to be automatically good.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not some kind of moralizing crusader or bible thumper, or whatever. I don’t think a show needs to be happy or uplifting or moralistic, either. I basically don’t have ANY of those biases, as a general rule. At least, not the way that Gen-X-ers seem to have them.
Also, I could be wrong, and you might be a Gen-Z person who has gone back and watched all this stuff after the fact, and simply disagrees with me. If that’s the case, I’ll commend you for going back and watching stuff in 4:3 standard definition. It’s usually like pulling teeth to get the young people to watch anything made before the HD era, even if it’s remastered in perfect HD.
It’s the aspect ratio that throws them off, which I particularly resent, on the grounds that Gen-Z has happily accepted VERTICAL VIDEO, in the form of Tik-Tok and YouTube Shorts, and that shit is abominable.
The genius of Seinfeld was how they took all the different plot lines and tied them together at the end. Complete with absurdity.
But yes it was 4 antisocial and/or disfunctional people.
Your thoughts on Frasier?
Oh shit, my dude. My thoughts on “Frasier” are MIND BOGGLINGLY FUCKING COMPLICATED, TO THE POINT THAT I AM NOT EVEN SURE WHAT I ACTUALLY FEEL, OR IF I AGREE WITH MYSELF. And it’s all modulated by shifting social attitudes since the original airing, as well as issues of separating the known views and personalities of the actors from the art itself. I mean, do you have fifteen or twenty minutes to read this? Because that’s what we’re talking about.
Seriously, there is so much contradiction and complexity with “Frasier.” On the one hand, it superficially follows the aforementioned “show about an actual premise, but it really is about anything and everything” model, to good effect.
It’s a show about a known character, with an interesting profession, made even more interesting by combining it with him being a minor media celebrity, inside the universe? That’s gold, from the very start. That can go anywhere. The writers never had to worry about having wells to draw potential plot points from.
Episodes that focus on stuff that happens on the air, on his show-within-a-show? They did those. They happened. Episodes that refer back to the aspects of practicing as a therapist? Niles did that. Those episodes were there. Ran out of ideas with that? Psych stuff getting boring? Episodes about their dad’s former police career! They happened, too! And then you throw in all the stuff about Frasier and Niles being snobs and constantly having to prove to themselves that they were really and truly “cultured and sophisticated.” If you run out of all that, you can have people stop in from Frasier’s former “Cheers” life. And THEN you throw in all the stuff with Niles and his obsession with Daphne.
Annnnd that’s where some of the cringe starts. And the “ick,” as the young people say.
That creepy shit, with Niles. It got old, as a comedic premise, first of all. And it was really pretty regressive and fucked up, on multiple levels. It’s not like the show really ever glorified Niles for objectifying Daphne. And it’s not like I’m about to get on a moralizing soapbox and cry foul, on the grounds that the show shouldn’t have presented him as a sympathetic character, despite being a married man with an obsessive crush on another woman, not his wife.
But the LEVEL of the objectification and stalker-style obsession is just gross, and I never liked it. And it certainly would be rightly controversial, today. And the fact that Niles eventually does “get” Daphne, as a reward for his patience? That really isn’t okay. It’s a repugnant and arguably outright dangerous message.
Whether they intended to or not, you can argue that this is the message they finally sent: “hey, all you lovelorn guys. Keep on smelling that girl’s hair, when she’s not looking. That’s okay, as long as you’re a nice guy. Be a good friend to her. Win her over, gradually, under false pretenses. Eventually, if you just keep on persisting in your dreams, the universe will reward you. After all that frustration and fantasizing, you deserve her.”
That’s, like, turbo-fucked. Nauseating. Again: I don’t think that was anyone’s explicit, specific intention. But it is there, when you look at the whole thing, from start to finish. Honestly, I believe it’s just laziness that brought it about. I listed all those other wells that the writers could draw from. They didn’t have any lack of potential material. And yet, they kept going back, more and more often, to this meme about Niles and Daphne and the whole love/obsession/friendzone thing. Ugh. It really did ruin the show for me, by the end.
Also, there’s the fact that Kelsey Grammer is a real jackass, on a personal and political level. Watching a known conservative doing his best impression of a “hoity toity, talk-about-your-feelings, readin’ book-smartsy books all the time Seattle liberal” is a little unpleasant, when you think about it.
And oh shit, there’s the new show. I haven’t watched it, but I am so sad that my man Nicholas Lyndhurst got sucked into that abominable shit-festival. God, I just hope they paid him really well.
I’m not going to get into the whole rant, you think what you want, this is the place for that. But it wasn’t pitched as “a show about nothing”, that was an arc in the show but it’s not at all what the actual theme of the show is
In a Reddit AMA, Seinfeld revealed how he and David really pitched the sitcom to NBC. The actor noted, “The pitch for the show, the real pitch, when Larry and I went to NBC in 1988, was we want to show how a comedian gets his material. The show about nothing was just a joke in an episode many years later.” That’s exactly what the show is, and for the first seven seasons, every episode sees Jerry performing stand-up comedy, making jokes based on exactly what that particular episode is about
https://screenrant.com/seinfeld-show-about-nothing-jerry-larry-david-pitch/
So don’t worry so much about the show being about nothing. It’s a sit-com.
Those may be the facts, and I’m glad to see a very concise summary of them, from you. But honestly, in order for those facts to be REALLY relevant to my rant, you’d have to tell all the people who believe the show WAS “a show about nothing” and think that’s AWESOME.
It’s those people (who believe the myth but applaud its premise) that prompted me to make this post, in the first place.
you’d have to tell all the people who believe the show WAS “a show about nothing” and think that’s AWESOME.
Who are these people? Show me. You’ve got an image in your mind of some blithering idiot who drools over the show strictly because “it’s a show about nothing” and that makes you mad. Can’t really argue with a strawman like that, but if you ever come across them rest assured they’re wrong in their premise and feel good about yourself
People like Seinfeld because it’s a light sitcom that can make a majority of them laugh at the situations it’s characters get into. Nothing more.
I’ll just have to basically concede to this particular whole comment. I can’t point you to any specific time or instance when I’ve heard people extolling the virtues of “Seinfeld” as being a genius progenitor of the “show about nothing” concept. Not because I’m making the whole thing up as a strawman, but because it’s not really things I can cite. It’s bits of small talk, over the years, in contexts where I didn’t want to argue about it. Reddit comments from years ago, that I’d never be able to find. Stuff people said in chat, in MMO games that no longer exist. That sort of thing.
But yeah, in that vein, I also concede that it’s petty enough of me to want to yell into the ether, in the unknowable direction of whoever and wherever those people are. Fine.
On the other hand, this is a place specifically for saying unpopular things. Maybe I take it too far in the direction of “also, saying it in a provocative manner, to vent my existential frustrations,” but I think that’s as good a way of wasting time as anything else.
And on the OTHER other hand, the whole conversation has sparked some really interesting and valid discussion, as well.
I fully hear you and I liked talking about it. Your rant was the perfect spot for me to get out that same aggression and counter-rant.
And it’s important to put these unpopular opinions out there and fight it out. Sometimes I google “does anyone else hate this popular shit?” and it’s annoying when I can’t find other people with the same takes.
