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Comment by csdvrx | Hacker News Reader

> I suspect that a lot of people from today dropped into the 90s would find a great deal incredibly frustrating.

What I find the most shocking is the difference in cultural values.

This summer I was watching some reruns of a popular 1990s show. I forgot the name (could be friend or seinfeld?) but it boiled down to body shaming then gay shaming a man who's short and suffers from hair loss. Gross.

It may have been ok to broadcast that back then, but I found that not comical at all and very painful to watch.

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If the show was Seinfeld then it brings up an interesting point: the context of the show is that all of the characters are socially pathological. They are bad people who treat others poorly—that's the whole show. It would be fascinating if today's viewers might see it as an endorsement of those behaviours!

> the context of the show is that all of the characters are socially pathological

I have no idea of the context: I just watched this episode and I found it shocking enough to not bother trying more episodes.

> It would be fascinating if today's viewers might see it as an endorsement of those behaviours!

When watching, I didn't have enough context to say if it was an endorsement or not, but the body shaming and gay shaming were synchronized with a laugh track, so it's not just that it was considered to be ok for main characters to engage in such behaviors, it was intended as humor

I don't find that funny, but shocking and sad.

I've found this a really interesting (and sudden) change. It has been commented on a fair bit in popular media, the most recent I saw was in "No Hard Feelings" where the younger generation get angry at Jennifer Lawrence for gay shaming (in this instance, as a 40-year-old my first thought was that she made a reasonable comeback given how she herself was just treated, but as far as the 19-year-olds were concerned she had crossed a line!)

Whether you can enjoy 90's (or earlier) content really depends if you can view it in the context that produced it; if you go all "death of the author" it's just going to seem cringe.

> really depends if you can view it in the context that produced it; if you go all "death of the author" it's just going to seem cringe.

I don't wish death to anyone. I try to separate the author from the art, so there are many things I can enjoy: I'm listening to Bing Crosby's White Christmas. He may have been a bad person [1], but the song is nice. If he was singing hate stuff on a happy melody, I wouldn't enjoy it.

This TV series making fun of bad things is something else.

[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/mbqqeb/isnt-it-funny-that-bi...

Seinfeld is one of the greatest shows of all time. You’d seriously be depriving yourself by not watching it.

Friends and Seinfeld are still two of the most popular syndicated programs in America, and generally you can find at least one episode of either or both on at any given time of day on modern basic cable in 2023 USA.

Certain groups absolutely have valid reasons not to return to 90’s cultural norms but a pretty large majority would have no objection, at least initially.

The bottom line is probably that, for better or worse, a lot of people have broader boundaries on comic offensiveness than others do. And, especially as you plumb older comedy, there's more to offend the latter category.

As someone who worked for a large company from the mid-80s to the late 90s, there was a lot of casual behavior that was, perhaps not admired, but considered just part of how things were at the time. A lot of stuff happened that people wouldn't do today unless they felt they were invulnerable from being reported to HR.

I'm surprised you found George Costanza to be so sympathetic.

After checking the picture, it may have been him indeed.

It's not about finding characters sympathetic or not. It was very inappropriate, like if 2 characters were talking around a coffee, then one suddenly flipped the table and punched the other character in the face and everybody laughed while he was spitting teeth and blood.

I would find that disturbing, because it's not relatable.

The show was to be about humor, and it was popular, so I thought it could be relatable, but It wasn't.

I have watched and enjoyed many other popular shows (ex: Sliders, TNG, Stargate, I want to do X-files next) but I can't enjoy this "comedy" because it's not fun.

It's a show that plays to New Yorker stereotypes and exaggerates them. I suspect you wouldn't have liked it at the time either.

It varies from episode to episode is the thing. Seinfeld in every way was not about continuity.

i.e. everyone can relate to George drivingmand thinking of the perfect comeback to a mean spirited comment.

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