It has been two decades since the show went off the air, but the cultural staying power is still there. In the post-ironic comedic landscape of our current times, it is startling how the laugh-track driven relic has lived on in the consciousness of the younger generation.
Even though I am surrounded by a pop culture that is shaped by it, I have never watched the show.
The nine-year run of the show made it difficult to actually watch it. It only took a summer of boredom, a chaotic firing at my first job out of college, and a desire to fully immerse myself in a time far away from my current reality. I was told to watch it by my girlfriend.
I had been with this girl for a long time, through college and the chaos of a post-college global pandemic. It was a relationship that was starting to feel like it was hanging by a thread as I stumbled through my first year in NYC.
I began the show despite the anxiety surrounding my relationship, career, and future. I have to watch the entire show in order when I start a show. Even if it takes a long time.
In the wobbly opening season, I saw the actions and decisions of Jerry Seinfeld, George Costanza, Elaine Benes, and even CosmoKramer. The content felt like it was real even if the modes didn't. I felt like I had been stuck in a George-esque thought pattern for a while.
George doesn't know how to break free of a relationship in the first episode of the second season of The Ex- Girlfriend. Jerry told George to do it like a band-aid, one motion, as I sat next to my girlfriend.
I looked at her and turned away. It was too realistic to be watched. The show started to hit its sweet spot as the seasons progressed and I realized every life crisis I went through was experienced by the characters.
It felt like George was on the couch looking for work. Being lost in the parking garage feels like daily aimlessness. I was spending more time with these people than I was with my friends and family.
I told myself that I was going to be a person who was out there, experiencing life and all of its eccentricities, highs and lows. I wanted to get out of my head. When I ripped off the band-aid, I became fascinated with Elaine's constantly changing spirit of finding partners and escaping them. The way in which people embraced Jerry despite his nonchalance felt like something to aspire to.
I realized as the seasons changed that these characters weren't role models. They were self-absorbed and didn't commit. I realized I was less interested in being a character than in living their lives.
Every day in New York you were bound to have a weird interaction with a breathing person. There was a New York where failures were a daily occurrence but something to shrug off and forget, because there was always a new chance to make a fool of yourself.
Even a passenger in their own life can hone sophisticated social tools in New York. Don't give it back. Double dipping is not a good idea. Maybe not parking in the handicapped spot is a good idea.
For a generation of twenty-somethings growing up in the shadow of COVID, Seinfeld is a different world, one where there still is a reason to leave your apartment every day, whether to pretend to do work at your office or to pick up a date. It doesn't seem like reliving the day's madness with your friends is as enjoyable as shutting yourself off from the chaos outside.
I grew into my New York self as the weather got cold. Therapy and landing a new, exciting, fully in-person job with people my age helped. The only difference was that I felt like I was maturing in some way.
I realized the gang was starting to annoy me when I took off my coat and sat down for the last two episodes of the season. The show's motto is "no hugging, no learning" It was odd that the show that taught me so much about basic human interaction had characters who never grew up.
They had started out the show much older than I was and there was no sign of a next phase in life being reached. They were able to point out their own stasis.
After Larry David left the show, the show became focused on the absurdity level, sucking the rest of the cast into a funhouse mirror of reality. What was this like every day?
By the end of the series, I was ready to move on. The various cast of supporting characters, well-adjusted and not, who dropped by just to testify to the craven amorality of the fabulous four were similar to me. Will was a slightly neurotic writer who was now observing a beloved show instead of mimicking it.
Even if they couldn't improve as people, Jerry and the gang made a difference to me. Whether it was learning what not to do, or what to say or not say, Seinfeld introduced millions to a new comedy language. In New York, in your twenties and thirties, career paths, and even friends can change. Each one is worth documenting for its own reasons.
When I first watched the show in June, I felt different. There is a television series worth of life experience out there for all of us, just waiting to be written, and I would not choose anything else to help me track a transformational, tumultuous period in life.
You can watch all of the shows on the internet.
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