The act of people who weren't around to watch Seinfeld when it originally aired complaining that it's just so overdone, unfunny, unoriginal, tired, cliched, or just like other shows, is called the "Seinfeld is Unfunny" trope.
>"I don't know what the big deal with Hamlet is. It's just one famous saying after another, strung together by a moldy old plot." — Old Joke
>There are certain shows that you can safely assume most people have seen. These shows were considered fantastic when they first aired. Now, however, these shows have a Hype Backlash curse on them. Whenever we watch them, we'll cry, "That is so old" or "That is so overdone".
>The sad irony? It wasn't old or overdone when they did it, because they were the first ones to do it. But the things it created were so brilliant and popular, they became woven into the fabric of that show's genre. They ended up being taken for granted, copied and endlessly repeated. Although they often began by saying something new, they in turn became the new status quo. It's basically the inverse of a Grandfather Clause taken to a trope level: rather than being able to get away with something that is seen as overdone or out of style simply because it was the one that started it, people will unfairly disregard it because it got lost amidst its sea of imitations even though it paved the way for all those imitators. That is, a work retroactively becomes a Cliché Storm.
>There may be good reason for this. Whoever is first to do something isn't likely to be the best at it, simply because everyone that comes after is building on their predecessors' work.
>Named after Seinfeld, which many people won't watch any more because everything about it has been copied. note Most likely will result in Fan Haters and accusations of Rule Abiding Rebels. This can also occur in countries that get the shows years after they originally come out.
>When someone attempts to make "Seinfeld" funny again in this time and age, see Reconstruction.
Not to be confused with the act of thinking an old in-joke referencing a sub-culture was originally from that show (yada, yada, yada), which is called the "Seinfeld Effect" or the modern internet-meme related "Family Guy Effect".
Thanks for sharing. I had no idea there was a term for it.
As I reflect, I can see that with a lot of shows I thought were amazing. Humour evolves in such a fascinating way that a killer joke, even if it’s not context specific to an era, can stop being funny.
I showed my wife a bunch of flash videos from my teenage years. She just stared and I slowly came to realize: they’re just not funny anymore. I remember thinking they were such a novel concept and the humour was trying something very new. But I guess what was new and exciting then is so socially normal now that it doesn’t trigger the funny response.
>Abstract: Freud's theory of jokes explains how they overcome the mental "censors" that make it hard for us to think "forbidden" thoughts. But his theory did not work so well for humorous nonsense as for other comical subjects. In this essay I argue that the different forms of humor can be seen as much more similar, once we recognize the importance of knowledge about knowledge and, particularly, aspects of thinking concerned with recognizing and suppressing bugs -- ineffective or destructive thought processes. When seen in this light, much humor that at first seems pointless, or mysterious, becomes more understandable.
>Introduction
>A gentleman entered a pastry-cook's shop and ordered a cake; but he soon brought it back and asked for a glass of liqueur instead. He drank it and began to leave without having paid. The proprietor detained him. "You've not paid for the liqueur." "But I gave you the cake in exchange for it." "You didn't pay for that either." "But I hadn't eaten it". --- from Freud (1905).
[...]
>In the 1912 edition Freud, still perplexed about the purpose of nonsense, recounts a joke of this form: {11}
>"A man at the dinner table dipped his hands in the mayonnaise and then ran them through his hair. When his neighbor looked astonished, the man apologized: "I'm so sorry. I thought it was spinach."
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunn...
>"I don't know what the big deal with Hamlet is. It's just one famous saying after another, strung together by a moldy old plot." — Old Joke
>There are certain shows that you can safely assume most people have seen. These shows were considered fantastic when they first aired. Now, however, these shows have a Hype Backlash curse on them. Whenever we watch them, we'll cry, "That is so old" or "That is so overdone".
>The sad irony? It wasn't old or overdone when they did it, because they were the first ones to do it. But the things it created were so brilliant and popular, they became woven into the fabric of that show's genre. They ended up being taken for granted, copied and endlessly repeated. Although they often began by saying something new, they in turn became the new status quo. It's basically the inverse of a Grandfather Clause taken to a trope level: rather than being able to get away with something that is seen as overdone or out of style simply because it was the one that started it, people will unfairly disregard it because it got lost amidst its sea of imitations even though it paved the way for all those imitators. That is, a work retroactively becomes a Cliché Storm.
>There may be good reason for this. Whoever is first to do something isn't likely to be the best at it, simply because everyone that comes after is building on their predecessors' work.
>Named after Seinfeld, which many people won't watch any more because everything about it has been copied. note Most likely will result in Fan Haters and accusations of Rule Abiding Rebels. This can also occur in countries that get the shows years after they originally come out.
>When someone attempts to make "Seinfeld" funny again in this time and age, see Reconstruction.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Reconstruction
Not to be confused with the act of thinking an old in-joke referencing a sub-culture was originally from that show (yada, yada, yada), which is called the "Seinfeld Effect" or the modern internet-meme related "Family Guy Effect".
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/seinfeld-effect
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/family-guy-effect