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It’s funny how, in spite of all the arguments and all the varying interpretations – concrete versus relative, personal ethos versus cosmic principles, etc. – there are certain characters where everybody just agrees what alignment they are. Like, no matter what interpretation you’re using, everybody’s on the same page that Jerry Seinfeld is Lawful Evil – no question whatsoever.
@weasterberry replied:
You have never shown your age more than using Jerry Seinfeld as your
universal reference on a website predominantly used by people born in
the late 90s-early 2000sI suspect you underestimate just how frequently Jerry Seinfeld pops up in Millennia memes. Ironic Jerry Seinfeld fandom has become a whole thing for the post-2000 generation. I don’t understand it either.
In my experience the heavy recycling of pop culture that has become possible with easy digital access to the media of the past has meant that there is nothing you can assume millennials don’t know because it was before their time.
My 20 year old son can debate with you the merits of Super Nintendo vs. Sega Genesis and which games of the time period were the best. My 13 year old son is a big fan of Berzerk (the video game).
Oh, I totally agree that the notion that it’s safe to assume the current generation will typically be unaware of media from “before their time” is, itself, an example of outmoded thinking.
That’s not the part I don’t understand.
The part I don’t understand is: why Jerry Seinfeld in particular? Of all the early 1990s hack comedians who could have experienced a sudden and inexplicable resurgence of popularity in youth culture – ironic though it may be – after decades of cultural irrelevance, why him?
Alright, you got my millennial ass thinking about it now.
Option 1) it might have something to do with his desperate attempts to stay relevant and how spectacularly they’ve backfired. I mean, you’ve got Bee Movie (a meme in and of itself) and that Getting Coffee thing (whatever that was), which were utter failures in the eyes of the eyes of the younger generation, much like when companies try to use memes in advertising. Very “how do you do, fellow kids?” Very bad. Very worthy of mocking.
Option 2) he seems like the kind of guy who would write an anti-millennial “think-piece”. Mr. What-is-the-DEAL-with-airplane-food and Mr. I-got-booed-at-a-college-campus-kids-these-days-are-so-humorless-damn-sjws combine to make one hell of an entitled asshole who thinks everyone else is an entitled asshole. Very bad. Very worthy of mocking.
Option 3) most similar to my personal experience. Millennials grew up with their parents watching Seinfeld and wanted to see what all of the fuss was about. They go to watch it, only to realize that the characters are horrible, self-serving jackasses who don’t give a damn who they hurt. Maybe Gen X found this funny in a this-is-ridiculous sort of way, or maybe they related to it. Either way, millennials probably see this behavior as pathetic or disgusting rather than entertaining, especially when you consider all the shit they put up with from horrible, self-serving jackasses on a regular basis. Very bad. Very worthy of mocking.
Option 4) 1990s jerry seinfeld has silly hair, as depicted in that one headshot everyone uses in their memes. Very bad. Very worthy of mocking.
Option 5) all of the above.
There may be some nuance that I’m missing, but I think most of us just really don’t like Jerry Seinfeld and enjoy mocking him with memes he probably wouldn’t understand, leading him to produce a “comedy” monologue about “kids these days and their weird charts and frogs and me-mes”.
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