First of all, yeah, come at me. âSeinfeldâ 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 âhyuk-hyuk, get a load of all my jokes about women driversâ comedians and the post-Lenny Bruce era, where everything just boils down to telling boring âslice of lifeâ 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 thatâs 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. Youâre simply wrong. If you like his comedy or his show, you just have bad taste. I canât fix that. I canât change your mind. You canât change mine, either. But Iâm objectively correct that he and his comedy material both suck.
But the whole âshow about nothingâ thing is what really boils my ass. You can argue that the show wasnât âabout nothing,â in the first place. And thatâs, like, whatever. There are valid arguments, there. In fact, Iâd like to accept those arguments, then proceed under the assumption that the âshow about nothingâ concept really is a âshow about nothing, and therefore about everything.â
This is the important point: the thing I disagree with is this wretched and insulting notion that âSeinfeldâ was somehow a PIONEERING television show, in this context of being about nothing and/or everything.
Thatâs my problem. The claim that âSeinfeldâ did any of that shit first. The implication is that all prior television, especially all prior comedies, were somehow locked into a âthis is a show about a particular topicâ mentality. And, like, ânobody 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.â
Thatâs fucking horseshit. Horseshit of the highest fucking caliber.
I suppose these turd-brained fucksticks believe that âI Love Lucyâ was about a Cuban guy who had a job as a bandleader and his wife, who sometimes tried to get into showbusiness. And âThe Honeymoonersâ would be about a guy who has a job as a bus driver. And âTaxiâ was a show about cab drivers, driving their cabs.
Of course, thatâs not what those shows were ACTUALLY ABOUT. They were basically shows about nothing, just as much as âSeinfeldâ 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 âshow about nothingâ mold BETTER than âSeinfeldâ ever did.
I say they did it better, because they werenât 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 thatâs part of the jokeâŠbut it wears thin very quickly, and my point is that other shows did a similar âitâs a show about nothingâŠbut really everythingâ theme, but their casts of characters WERENâT 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 donât give a shit. I can keep going. âGreen Acresâ wasnât really about farming. âThe Bob Newhart Showâ wasnât really about psychiatry, âThe Mary Tyler Moore Showâ wasnât really about TV production, and âWKRP in Cincinnatiâ wasnât really about radio production.
The shows about nothing and everything are THE MAJORITY of all the shows. Certainly, all the good ones. Itâs harder for me to think of reversed examples, where the show is just what it was supposed to be âabout.â
Like, yeah, âFlipperâ really was about a fucking dolphin, and âThe Flying Nunâ 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 wonât be reading that shit. Not sorry.
Those may be the facts, and Iâm 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, youâd have to tell all the people who believe the show WAS âa show about nothingâ and think thatâs AWESOME.
Itâs those people (who believe the myth but applaud its premise) that prompted me to make this post, in the first place.
Who are these people? Show me. Youâve got an image in your mind of some blithering idiot who drools over the show strictly because âitâs a show about nothingâ and that makes you mad. Canât really argue with a strawman like that, but if you ever come across them rest assured theyâre wrong in their premise and feel good about yourself
People like Seinfeld because itâs a light sitcom that can make a majority of them laugh at the situations itâs characters get into. Nothing more.
Iâll just have to basically concede to this particular whole comment. I canât point you to any specific time or instance when Iâve heard people extolling the virtues of âSeinfeldâ as being a genius progenitor of the âshow about nothingâ concept. Not because Iâm making the whole thing up as a strawman, but because itâs not really things I can cite. Itâs bits of small talk, over the years, in contexts where I didnât want to argue about it. Reddit comments from years ago, that Iâd 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 itâs 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 âalso, saying it in a provocative manner, to vent my existential frustrations,â but I think thatâs 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 itâs important to put these unpopular opinions out there and fight it out. Sometimes I google âdoes anyone else hate this popular shit?â and itâs annoying when I canât find other people with the same takes.