this post was submitted on 01 May 2024
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[–] Dex@sopuli.xyz 276 points 6 months ago (22 children)

What's funny about this is there's never been anything edgy about Jerry Seinfeld's standup act. And as far as Seinfeld goes he was barely involved in the writing. That was all Larry David and other talented writers. Of 180 episodes Jerry Seinfeld had 18 writing credits and all of them were shared with Larry David. Of those 18 credits 5 were in the first season which is undeniably the show's weakest and most forgettable. Jerry was always just the name. Larry was the talent.

I guess that's probably why Larry David just wrapped the final season of Curb this year while never once complaining about "not being allowed to do comedy" anymore like Jerry is. Turns out, you've always been allowed to do whatever comedy you like, you just have to actually be funny.

[–] kinsnik@lemmy.world 131 points 6 months ago (15 children)

It’s also funny because It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is still airing too, and that is massively more edgy than anything seinfeld ever did.

I think that the problem is that jerry want to be edgy and still be considered the good guy. Which is not how Curb, IASIP or even the Seinfeld tv show ever was. They always were presented as bad/flawed people doing bad stuff. You 100% can still do that type of comedy. But you can’t do comedy where the characters are supposed to be good but do bad stuff

[–] ggtdbz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 66 points 6 months ago (3 children)

It’s also funny because It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is still airing too, and that is massively more edgy than anything seinfeld ever did.

And that’s always been my argument when it comes to this particular dead horse. I don’t think any jokes are off the table, you just really have to make whatever discomfort you’re summoning be worth the punchline. The edgier something is the more it has to be funny to compensate, the point of offensive humor is to be funny not to offend, right? This has to be common sense. I don’t get how it flies over the head of so many people.

[–] jqubed@lemmy.world 27 points 6 months ago

There are a lot of people who seem to think offending is all it takes. I think Sam McMurray’s character “Glen” in Raising Arizona, who is constantly telling “jokes” about Polish people being stupid that none of the other characters find funny, is a perfect example of the type.

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[–] casmael@lemm.ee 32 points 6 months ago

Man that whole ‘being funny’ thing sounds really hard

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[–] NounsAndWords@lemmy.world 125 points 6 months ago (14 children)

Weird how these woke kids keep killing comedy while still being the best comedians, and it's always the ones leaning on their 30+ year old sets that think it's a problem.

What is the deal with airline food, anyway?

[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 57 points 6 months ago

What's the deal with time passing? It just happens! You don't want it to, but it does. One day you're riding high, one hand on Larry David's coattails and the other up some high school girl's skirt. You're thinking, "I'm gonna be on top forever. Everyone loves me now and it's always gonna be this way." Then the next day you're complaining about woke on a drive time radio show with Kid Rock. What's his deal anyway? He's not a rock, or even a kid. He's a man. He should be called Man Man.

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[–] Phegan@lemmy.world 115 points 6 months ago (9 children)

As a comedian you either die funny or live long enough to become a reactionary shit bag.

[–] Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca 63 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (13 children)

I don't think he was ever funny. Larry David may have been funny, and Seinfeld was fortunate enough to be involved with the show, but Jerry himself has always been a poor comedian and a tool.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 35 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I think Seinfeld was pretty funny in the 80s. His style of observational comedy was fresh back then though. Then there were a million Seinfeld copycats and there wasn't anything special about him anymore.

The same thing happened with Carlin. So he kept reinventing himself and updating his comedy with the times and that's why people loved him until the day he died.

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[–] IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world 88 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

He's gone full Bill Maher.

"Is my comedy stale and out of touch? No, it is the audience who are wrong."

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[–] ringwraithfish@startrek.website 82 points 6 months ago (38 children)

I listened to much of the interview on the radio. He touched on a lot of good points and then came to the absolutely wrong conclusion. He talked about how many writing rooms are "writing by committee" where jokes will go through a review by many different groups. If this is truly the case (I don't know) that is not an issue if the "far left mob" but rather the enshitification of comedy due to corporations and Wall Street bankrolling these productions wanting to ensure return on investment. This kills creativity by reducing risks. Topical comedy is a risky medium by default.

Also, shout out to Rob McElhenney for his sarcastic one word response. In Jerry's imagined world, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia can't exist.

[–] nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 32 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Had to look up said response and I agree. For anyone else looking, here's a screenshot of what I found:

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[–] TheBat@lemmy.world 81 points 6 months ago (11 children)

Yeah that's why edgy comedian like Jimmy Carr has released 2 Netflix specials in last 3 years. And he, unlike Seinfeld, isn't whining about 'kids these days'.

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 45 points 6 months ago (4 children)

There's a shit ton of good young comedians. Jerry is an old man telling kids to get off his lawn.

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[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 61 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (37 children)

They've certainly killed right-leaning comedians like Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Dennis Miller and (can't believe he made the list) Dave Chappelle.

Or maybe they killed themselves by just getting even lamer with their unfunny jokes that punch down at marginalized groups. 🤔

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[–] livus@kbin.social 51 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I somehow did not expect the 17 year old thing to be quite so creepy.

She was a highschooler who he met in a public park when he was 38. JFC.

[–] BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 25 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I can understand maybe thinking she was older when he talked to her and then finding out later she was underage and backing off, but he definitely just went for it. Creep.

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[–] STRIKINGdebate2@lemmy.world 50 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I remember seeing a post on r/agedlikemilk which theorised that Russell Brand was leaning more into right wing talking points in anticipation of the looming rape accusations being made public.

I wonder if the same thing is happening here.

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[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 46 points 6 months ago (2 children)

my favorite part of Seinfeld complaining that woke has killed comedy is that Curb Your Enthusiasm just finished a 24 year, 12 season run and their last season has a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes.

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[–] TubeTalkerX@kbin.social 44 points 6 months ago (2 children)

During the first two years of Seinfeld Jerry would stop by The Howard Stern show once a week trying to get the word out about the show. Howard said multiple times when the show takes off and is doing well Jerry would find a reason to stop coming in. Sure enough Robin reported the story of Jerry dating Shoshanna and Jerry stopped coming on.

Howard kept making fun of this, even sang a song with video intercut during his PPV.

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[–] AFC1886VCC@reddthat.com 43 points 6 months ago (1 children)

"Extreme left" is such a ridiculous term to use for this sort of thing lmao

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[–] kbal@fedia.io 42 points 6 months ago (14 children)

Normally when people identify all the "P.C. crap" that Seinfeld complains about as coming from the "extreme left" I figure it's because they've gone so far to the right that from way out there Bill Gates looks like a communist. But it's tempting to give Seinfeld the benefit of the doubt and assume that he might just be confused and ill-informed. The same refusal to accept reality that leaves him unable to let go of the urge to put a llama with a human head in his movie about Pop-Tarts may also have been sufficient to prevent him learning anything at all about politics for the past 30 years.

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[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 42 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (12 children)

Seinfeld is very exceptional in that it was a show which featured unapologetically bad people, and glorified them, very effectively.

You can be extremely cynical in your scripting while still holding up characters who have some sort of moral center and are trying to do the right thing. Old-season Simpsons did this very well. The characters are not bad. They are not nice and they have genuine failings, and the situations they find themselves in are not sugarcoated. But, it's still a show about trying to maintain your humanity, in a pretty realistic portrayal of the grim reality we all find ourselves in. The original "Arrested Development" is similar although a little more upper-class and light hearted.

Maybe I am a corny motherfucker but I do think that it's important to try to keep your eye on doing the right thing instead of the wrong thing, because it's real shit that every human being runs into and it's definitely not easy. Art does influence the ways people behave and the way they perceive the world. Seinfeld is a show about absolute horrible sociopaths, who ruin relationships and other people's lives over and over again because of their commitment to selfishness, and if you only look superficially, how relatable and fun and entertaining they can be to spend time with, and how easy it is to overlook what abominably bad people they are as long as it all seems fun.

Somewhere there is a video talking about how Jerry Seinfeld is actually one of the darkest comedians working. I don't even know where I could start to find it, but the guy talks about watching a Seinfeld bit about throwing trash in the movie theater before he leaves for someone else to clean up, and how the guy watching got this chilling feeling he never got from much more serious topics: Like it's not an act, he genuinely just feels nothing below surface level, and doesn't give a fuck what happens.

[–] nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 43 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Seinfeld is very exceptional in that it was a show which featured unapologetically bad people, and glorified them, very effectively.

I think that this contrasts rather heavily with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I had a lot of trouble getting into the show because I thought that that was what they were doing. But, in reality, we're NOT supposed to empathize with or relate to them. The Gang are unapologetically awful people who, despite never really getting what they deserve, cause nearly all of their own problems through their greed and selfishness (plus, Dennis is probably a serial killer).

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 41 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (14 children)

Jerry, kids aren't laughing at you because you're still doing the same style of comedy you did in the 90s and they don't think it's funny.

And I say that as someone who does think he's funny.

Edit: I did standup in the 90s too (obviously nowhere near his level). There are many reasons why I don't do it anymore, but realizing that what I was doing was getting out of date was definitely a factor. Get out when you can and people might still think of you fondly.

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[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 38 points 6 months ago (17 children)

Far-Right Influencers Celebrate Jerry Seinfeld Once Again Claiming ‘P.C. Crap' Killed Comedy

"It used to be you would go home at the end of the day, most people would go, ‘Oh, Cheers is on," he said in the interview. "‘Oh, M.A.S.H. is on, oh, Mary Tyler Moore is on. All in the Family is on.' You just expected, there'll be some funny stuff we can watch on TV tonight. Well, guess what? Where is it? This is the result of the extreme left and P.C. crap and people worrying so much about offending other people. When you write a script and it goes into four or five different hands, committees, groups - ‘Here's our thought about this joke' - well, that's the end of your comedy."

So he picks shows that had some racism in them as justification that we should still have racism around for entertainment purposes?

What an idiot. I’ve heard plenty of comedy that’s funny as hell without being a knuckle dragging buffoon and going after low hanging fruit like racism or making fun of women.

The clown admits he’s just not creative or smart enough to make decent comedy that isn’t easy cheap shots.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 33 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (20 children)

So he picks shows that had some racism in them as justification that we should still have racism around for entertainment purposes?

He also picked shows that were "extreme left" for their time. M*A*S*H was full of left-wing morals and speeches from the pens of both Larry Gelbart and Alan Alda and was savagely critical of an American war against communists while America was still in Vietnam.

Mary Tyler Moore was about an independent career woman in the 1960s, when women weren't allowed to have their own credit cards.

All in the Family was about a conservative racist constantly being shown that the world had moved on from his archaic ideas about the way things should be.

So what is his issue with the "extreme left" exactly if those were the shows he picked?

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[–] Linkerbaan@lemmy.world 33 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (16 children)
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[–] PoliticalAgitator@lemmy.world 31 points 6 months ago

The man defended Kramer after he hurled slurs and abuse at minorities at one of his shows. His opinions on comedy and bigotry are worthless.

[–] suction@lemmy.world 27 points 6 months ago

Seinfeld is such a douche. Always has been. He should thank God every day that he met Larry David.

[–] DestroyerOfWorlds@sh.itjust.works 25 points 6 months ago

That sounds exactly like a guy who collects Porsches.

[–] the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 25 points 6 months ago (8 children)

Why would he even be concerned about this? Seinfeld isn't Richard Pryor or George Carlin, he's the most milquetoast PG comic out there.

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[–] dezmd@lemmy.world 22 points 6 months ago (1 children)
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