What Non-Geeks Hate About the Big Bang Theory

v3rgEz writes: It has been said that there is a lot to dislike about the Big Bang Theory, from the typical geek's point of view: It plays in stereotypes of geekdom for cheap laughs, makes non-sensical gags, and has a laugh track in 2015. But what does the rest of America (well, the part of America not making it the number one show on television) think? FCC complaints recently released accuse the show of everything from animal cruelty to subliminal messaging, demanding that the sitcom be ripped from the airwaves lest it ruin America. The full complaints for your reading pleasure.

Comments

Its laugh track is a crime against humanity

[Anonymous Coward]

The most painful thing about this show are the "jokes" which are telegraphed to the audience by the world's most obnoxious laugh track.

Re:Its laugh track is a crime against humanity

[ArmoredDragon]

I think that's the main reason I can't watch that show, and to this date haven't watched a full episode yet. Every time I hear the laugh track I want to gag. What is this, 1965? If they're going to do it that way, at least have a live studio audience like Married with Children had that actually responds appropriately to what's happening when it's genuinely funny.

In Big Bang Theory just feels like somebody is methodically trying to tell you "ok, you laugh here, even if it's not funny" throughout the whole show.

Re:Its laugh track is a crime against humanity

[Tablizer]

I'm an old fogie and used to laugh tracks. Most "light" comedies seem awkward without them. It guess it's hard to make every generation happy.

But as far as the show, I sometimes get a "geek" kick out of it. You get dialog similar to:

A: "Rats, according to my carefully considered forecasts, I'll probably die before they can upload human conscientiousness into androids so one can live forever."

B: "Oh great, you'll really want to mill around as an awkward, annoying robot?"

A: "You claim I'm awkward and annoying now. How is that a change?"

B: "You sleep a third of the day now."

Re:Its laugh track is a crime against humanity

[DRJlaw]

OK, so if they have a live studio audience, how is it they managed to make it sound exactly like the laugh track from the Brady Bunch? The outcome is terrible regardless of whether the source is recorded or live.

They traveled back in time to the day of your birth and trained you to be a misanthrope who detests the sound of live human laughter?

Just a guess. You already seem intent upon disregarding any aspect of reality that conflicts with your preconceived notions, so I may as well go big.

Re:Its laugh track is a crime against humanity

[Darinbob]

As in "I don't think it's funny, so any laughter must be coming from a badly programmed AI audience stand in".

Re:Its laugh track is a crime against humanity

[GNious]

I find Seinfeld and That 70s Show, both filmed in front of a live studio audience to be funny and the audience laughter doesn't bother me in the slightest. There's something different about TBB. Maybe it's the writing, maybe the audience is prompted to laugh at every joke no matter how mediocre - either way, it's missing something or this thread wouldn't exist.

I've watched Seinfeld - it wasn't funny. People just really, REALLY wants it to be.

Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't realize the show was supposed to be about geeks. I thought it was ironically portraying the disconnect between the academic pursuit of science and things that happen in the real world. Real scientists are busy doing real work for real money. Meanwhile Big Bang Theorists are trying to figure out why the gay actor's character is so clumsy with women.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't watch it because it's a bit like going to work. I work in an engineering R&D firm, and there are quite a few characters here. Certainly Big Bang Theory is a sitcom and exaggerates things to dramatic effect, but there have been real life situations over here that aren't shown on TV because people wouldn't find them credible.

Imagine a place of employment where nobody is bad as Sheldon, maybe only a half Sheldon. But there are 10 of them, and they each have their own peculiar quirks and tastes in their Sheldon-ness.

How about that it's just not funny?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a geek, and I think that show is retarded.

Re:None of the people I know that Like this Show..

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Actually there's no hacker mentality required to be a geek. Stop gatekeeping what a geek is.

Like, the hacker mentality kinda sucks, actually. It's convinced a lot of people that broken software like Windows is worth keeping around because there are work arounds for the warts in the system.

Whatever happened to just having a deep appreciation and enthusiasm for something?

Or biting heads off chickens? If you're not biting heads off chickens, you're not a real geek.

What geeks hate the most is the lack of geekiness!

[Anonymous Coward]

There was some genuine geekiness in the beginning but it is all gone now. Now its a show about stupid obnoxious people trying to seem smart... not at all as fun as it was in the beginning when it was about nice people with personality problems.

I hate it because it's terminally unfunny

[JoeyRox]

Probably one of the worst sitcoms I've ever tried to watch. Go to youtube and search "big bang theory without laugh track" and see what I mean.

Re:None of the people I know that Like this Show..

[Anonymous Coward]

,,,are Geeks.

They would like to be, but lack the essential 'hacker' mentality required to Be a Geek.

Most of them are unimaginative morons, although highly educated.

A highly educated moron is easy to achieve with modern education; they can calculate something without any understanding whatsoever.

I've always considered the show to be "blackface" for nerds.

Yeah, wait, hang on

[roc97007]

Ok, not to break up a (somewhat) popular hate fest, but you HAVE to realize, for any given sitcom on commercial TV, there's inevitably going to be FCC complaints, many of which are going to be ... strange. Consider, in any group of people 300M large, a significant fraction of which watch TV, a significant fraction of *that* having no other damn thing going in their lives, what the heck do you THINK is going to happen? We used to call these people Fred and Ethyl, after Lucy's hapless elderly neighbors. Fred and Ethyl eat dinner off tin fold-up TV trays and watch TV in real time, including commercials. Fred and Ethyl can't tell the difference between rubber brains and the head meat of small animals. They think objects thrown from offstage must be from monkeys in a cage because that's what the dialog alludes to. They think the sounds of a cat squalling are being made by someone torturing a cat just behind that fake window there. Combine this with the current fashion of being offended at the tiniest opportunity, and what do you THINK is going to happen?

This article speaks more about the reporters than the reportees. It's non-news, but it bashes a show that some geeks don't like. So let's go with it. (In Kevin Kline's voice) DisapPOINTed.

And finally, it's not a laugh track -- it's a multicamera studio production in front of a live audience. Geeze.

I thought this was news for nerds. Not news for clueless nerds.

Some people need to get a life

[kheldan]

If you don't like the show then don't watch it anymore, but don't go trying to enforce your standards on everyone else.

Re:None of the people I know that Like this Show..

[Anonymous Coward]

The show is OK, but isn't really for geeks and none of the characters are much like any geek I've ever known.

I'm a physicist in Pasadena. I know more than a few people like each of the characters, and may or may not be similar to some of them.

The first three seasons were pretty good, and there are (or at least were) quite a few physics in-jokes, but it's hard to maintain something like that and they've turned most of the characters into caricatures of their earlier season versions.

Science or Entertainment?

[Nehmo]

This is /., not People magazine. The big bang theory is firstly about the beginning of our universe. This predates the TV sitcom that adopted the name. Submitter should punctuated the title to indicate he/she was referring to the name of the sitcom.

Nowadays, misleading titles translates into rudely wasting people's time. The sloppy title counts as a fault as serious as you can get in terms of punctuation errors.

Re:None of the people I know that Like this Show..

[mythosaz]

I've always considered the show to be "blackface" for nerds.

The show has evolved over the years. While it used to be a compare and contrast of geeks versus normal people, it's now a show about relationships.

Leonard and Penny's benchmark "normal, but nerdy" relationship compared to Howard and Bernadette's cuckolding relationship, compared to Amy's needs with Sheldon, and finally to Raj's struggle to find a keep a girlfriend.

It used to be geeks v. world. Now it's geeks v. geeks. It's why Raj talks to women now, and why we rarely see them interact with "normies" except to setup a problem that each couple treats differently -- or that the boys treat differently than the vastly-more-normal girls.

[For what it's worth, I never found it be nerd blackface. We both laughed at and with them...]

Re:None of the people I know that Like this Show..

[Darinbob]

I don't see that. Black face is intensely offensive. Big Bang Theory only insults people without a sense of humor who can't laugh at themselves. Geeks should never become a protected class, that's ridiculous. Speaking as a nerd myself, nerds are indeed funny. To try and equate these two things is offensive in itself.

Re:None of the people I know that Like this Show..

[TheRaven64]

I don't see that. Black face is intensely offensive. Big Bang Theory only insults people without a sense of humor who can't laugh at themselves

Blackface is offensive because it insults black people be reinforcing stereotypes that are not really true outside of prejudiced perception. The big bang theory, in contrast, insults geeks by reinforcing stereotypes that are not really true outside of a prejudiced perception. It's therefore completely different and not offensive.