Seinfeld

namevalue
date2025-01-31
locationPlaya del Carmen, MX
authorAnton

If you want to understand America you need to watch Seinfeld. It’s a cultural phenomenon that is still relevant today - 35+ years after the first season came out.

Ok, so you’r millennial from Europe and you like Friends or Sex and The City - I got it. Those things are much more popular outside of the US.

But let me bring you to America.

As of Jan 31, 2025

Reddit is the site that extremely popular in the US. And you see all the numbers above. Seinfeld subreddit has 2 times more members than Friends or How I Met Your Mother, or 10 times more than Sex and the City.

What is the deal with Seinfeld?

It’s a cultural phenomenon so it’s a hard thing to explain or analyze, but let me list few points.

Seinfeld could have been easily called Friends and that name would suite Seinfeld better than Friends TV Show.

Friends displays relationship between 6 people that I’ve never seen in my life(especially in America). In Friends 4 out of 6 people always live in two neighboring apartments. That is already unrealistic. The whole point of New York is that you choose a place you can afford and like and then you step up of your apartment to meet people! And you meet people who have similar beliefs or tastes or do some cool things. You don’t spend all your time in the apartment with 3 people who live with you or next door.

Also in Friends almost all the characters slept with each other(with exception of Phoebe and Ross-Monica). I’ve never saw such group dynamic in my life. In Seinfeld all the characters have romantic relationships outside of the group(with small exceptions that are not over proportional to real life).

The most weird thing that Seinfeld could have been easily called Sex and The City. It was also about 4 very different adults who navigated their social and romantic life in NYC.

Ok, but why I’m writing about Seinfeld here?

I think Seinfeld is truly anti-antihuman. Let me make my case.

One of the best parts of Seinfeld is its deep penetration in our everyday lives. If you watched Friends you can make few references to the show in real life(one Mississippi, two Mississippi etc), if you watched HIMYM it’s the same(“Wait for it!”). But if you watched Seinfeld there are countless numbers of things that you would drop daily and they would be understood by people who watched the show.

Another distinct thing about Seinfeld that it’s all “clean jokes” - which is different from the modern American standup. I do admire that, because it’s just way harder to execute.

Another big thing in Seinfeld is constant reflection on the current state of society, societal norms, culture etc. Jerry Seinfeld’s standup was like that - observation comedy and the whole TV show was done in that style. Nothing even close to this happened in the other TV shows I named. Observing and self-reflection are very anti-antihuman things. Those are the things I try to do on this site.

Seinfeld is anti-antihuman because it’s not flawless or overproduced. All the characters are “just ‘umans”. And the actors are humans too - Jerry Seinfeld is famously considered to be not a great actor.

So the show feels very real and not overproduced and not polished. And this brings me to the last point.

Have you noticed in the past 10 years rise of raw podcasts? Think Joe Rogan and others. Where the host would sit and talk to a guest for 3 hours with no filter.

That was the whole point of Seinfeld - Jerry and George just talking to each other. With no preparation and no agenda.

Seinfeld tapped into that 20 years before everyone else really. While Friends were about relationships and romantic drama and Chandler and Joey watching TV on their armchairs Seinfeld was and is about something else - random unfiltered conversations. Something that so many of us still seek now.