Seinfeld is one of those shows that might never fade away—at least maybe not in our lifetimes. Along with it’s successor and fellow NBC smash hit, Friends, it is part of the pantheon of great sitcoms that is always airing somewhere. If you were to ask someone on the street to describe an episode of either program, they’d most likely be able to.
The episode where Joey gets a Turkey on his head. The episode where Jerry buys and ruins an expensive suede jacket.
Seinfeld ran from 1989 to 1998. Friends ran from 1994 to 2004. Yet here we are 17 years after either show aired a new episode, and both still reign somewhat supreme. Have any programs come anywhere close to being as popular or ubiquitous? How I Met Your Mother maybe? New Girl perhaps? The Office? Modern Family? Dare I say The Big Bang Theory?
I’m sure I could put fans of each of those shows into an arena, and they’d squabble to the death over which is the best. As entertaining as that might be, the results wouldn’t matter much, as each of those shows have given their curtain calls. And it’s worth noting that all of those aforementioned programs were network television—they aired the old fashioned way. Live. With Commercials. On Cable TV.
But the era of the 2000s sitcom has ended, and we emerge from it, in a lawless land of infinite streaming services. Could I even compile a comprehensive list of popular programming now? Hasn’t the definition of popular or successful content changed entirely? I’ve seen shows on Netflix that other people have never heard of. I’ve watched “blockbuster” movies on HBO Max that have come and gone with a whisper.
Certainly the populous watches a lot of TV—but we aren’t even watching the same TV anymore. And this isn’t a phenomenon unique to television or films. It’s books. It’s sports. It’s social media. The odds we’ve experienced any of the same entertainment is becoming staggeringly low. We’ve stratified into oblivion. Our culture has splintered with tremendous speed and terrible force.
So, what’s the effect of all this?
Jerry
First, I think we should go back to Seinfeld. The show created by Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David is said to be “a show about nothing.” It focuses more on the minutiae of everyday interactions and situations, than it does on some substantial character arch. For example, Jerry isn’t on the quest for the perfect mate; Elaine isn’t trying to buck gender norms and make it on Wall Street; and George isn’t trying to make enough money to pay for his parent’s medical bills.
No, there’s quite literally nothing of real consequence happening to any of the characters at any time. And sprinkled amongst the scenes of funny frivolousness, are scenes of Jerry Seinfeld doing real stand up.
Jerry’s act mirrors the show’s lighthearted pointlessness. He talks about how the washing machine is a night club for laundry. He comments on how silly it is that people are so excited in soda commercials. He likes corded phones because you can slam them—you can’t slam a cordless phone. He’s the reason you’ve heard the phrase “what’s the deal with airline food.”
His humor is observational, innocuous, and with the benefit of hindsight, boring and obvious—even if it’s still charming. Now it seems implausible if not impossible to make a show like Seinfeld, or any of its copycats, with any success today—so why was it possible in the 1990s?
Mass Media Hits Puberty
Encyclopedia Britannica calls the 1990s, “the loss of shared experience.” They note, and support my argument, by stating that from the onset of radio in the early 20th century to the time of Jerry, George, and Elaine in 1990s, media was controlled by very small number of companies—ABC, CBS, and NBC.
This created what Britannica calls, “a unified mass culture.” This unification was stronger than anything that cultures had previously experienced—think about it! It was an unprecedented situation. Not even religion had done such a good job at delivering the same content to everyone.
Seinfeld and Friends caught the tail end of this era, and as a result, could paint with broad strokes. It’s easy, and perhaps wise from the writers’ and producers’ standpoint, to talk about slices of life that everyone can relate to, when everyone is watching.
But not everyone would be watching for long—because in the 1990s, new networks with specialized programming, targeted at more narrow audiences, entered into the arena: Cartoon Network, AMC, HGTV, and so on.
Sure! You might like Seinfeld. But you love cooking. And so when it comes down to watching a sitcom, or the newly minted Food Network—then whatever iteration of Chopped existed in the 1990s might win your attention.
This, as we now know well, has happened a thousand times over in television and everywhere outside of television. Which brings me back to my original question: What is the effect of all this?
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Much can be said about the state of pop culture today, and as much as I enjoy being a synergistic blend of devil’s advocate and grumpy old man, I must admit that not all of it is bad.
Variety—as they say—is the spice of life. It is objectively good that a wider range of stories are being told. Much of art has gotten bolder and more raw and more truthful across the cornucopia of mediums. People who never had a chance to express their experiences are finally afforded an opportunity to do so. Folks who feel like outsiders have come to find niches where they feel heard—where they feel like insiders. And that’s beautiful.
That’s the good—but as firm believer in the Yin Yang—I think there is a definite downside.
Media, in essence, is a kind of feedback loop. In the 1990s, it was one big loop, and Seinfeld and Friends probably had an inordinate amount of influence on that loop. An imperfect, and admittedly anecdotal example of this, would be the popularity and recognizability of Jennifer Aniston or Jerry Seinfeld, as compared to the stars of How I Met Your Mother or New Girl. Neil Patrick Harris and Zoey Deschanel have surely had nice careers and are talented actors, but in my mind, and I suspect most others, they’re not quite Jennifer or Jerry level famous.
There’s nothing wrong with that—you could argue that the dilution of celebrity potency is actually a good thing—and I think it was all fine and dandy into the 2000s. But as I’ve said, come 2021, we’ve hit a new speed entirely.
These different specialized networks or channels or mediums of content, have not only become numerous, but voluminous. You can now watch only sports or only news or only reality TV or only indie classics or only animation or only whatever suits your fancy, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
I understand that sounds like a consumer’s dream. Maybe it is—but it also makes universal common ground harder to come by. For the more we watch tv—or perhaps just look at screens in general—the more our experience is tied to what we watch and consume, and thus, the more our reality is shaped by our choice of consumption. This is our new landscape: a world of infinite, personalized feedback loops. And these narrow little feedback loops, made special for Jack or Charlie or Mandy or Kendra, is why making Seinfeld today, would be nearly impossible.
How are you supposed to make a show about the little awkward moments of everyday life, if everyday life is more different from person to person than it’s ever been?
The lack of commonality might partially explain why there’s a lot of division in this country. We like to stay in our own little bubbles—and the longer we remain isolated and insulated, the harder it is to accept and reconcile the differences between us. It’s as if we’ve forgotten that some people like the Golf channel and others like Bravo—and that’s OK.
Our world of isolated loops is also troubling because it makes it difficult for a transcendent or universal piece of art—a piece of art that might unify us like The Beatles or Seinfeld once did—to transcend. On the one hand, yes, the likelihood a transcendent piece of work might be made and put out into the world is higher, because there are more networks or streaming services for it to go to—but on the other hand, the odds that something transcendent is recognized as universally good and culturally significant, is much lower, and thus less likely to make the impact it otherwise should have.
So if we can’t agree that anyone is the modern Shakespeare or the new Beatles, and no show will ever be as popular as Friends was, then what are we to do?
I think it’s a fallacy to say that times were better in the 1980s. There’s a lot of glorification and nostalgia of decades past, and of the 80s in particular—and perhaps what we see or sense from those times, is more community. It was easier to feel like you were part of the fabric of society when we were closer to one big quilt.
Maybe now we’re not so much a big quilt, but a number of blankets. Little pockets of community, instead of one big one. And I think that’s okay. It has to be okay—because I don’t think there’s any going back.
We just have to remember to value the communities and commonalities we do have. We can’t devolve into blanket on blanket warfare.
We have to remember that despite how diverse and divergent our slices of life have become from those around us—despite not watching the same shows, not listening to the same music, or even voting for the same politicians—that we are, if only as human beings, fundamentally connected.
We must remember, that somewhere between us, there is a innocuous, obvious Seinfeld moment of nothingness that binds us together.
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Seinfeld and Splintered Culture