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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.
This show reminds me of "Friends" in so many ways it's frightening. It's a cookie-cutter production, seemingly. You just have different personality experts working this show.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
I like it, too; it's got it's problems, but it makes me laugh, which is the point. If anything, though, I see it more as the wet dream of nerds - they all get women (some of them quite attractive, some of them nerdy themselves - which is very attractive to a lot of nerds). I work in a very creative environment, with a lot of animators and artists - and a lot of them like the show. They all have toy collections and nerdy sides to them. The show doesn't have intellectual humor - it just makes you think it does; at the end of the day, it's like a lot of other sitcoms where we watch the lives of a bunch of social misfits - like the Simpsons, Married with Children, Seinfeld...
Stupid sexy Flanders.
So here I present you a geek who enjoys watching the show: Me.
Go to youtube and search "big bang theory without laugh track" and see what I mean.
What does that tell you? All it tells you is that we're used to a certain presentation of certain forms of entertainment, and when our expectations are not met it's jarring and disconcerting. Take a non-laugh-tracked "sitcom" (if they still fit that definition) like Peep Show or The Office or [insert non-laugh tracked sitcom you do find funny here] and add a laugh track and it will probably be just as un-funny because it throws the whole thing out of whack.
Take a production of MacBeth and have everyone perform it in flippers. Probably not going to last long.
If something makes someone laugh (for example, BBT with audience laughter), it's funny. If something doesn't make someone laugh (for example, BBT without laugh track) that doesn't mean that the first version wasn't "funny", and that the viewer must be therefore have been suffering some kind of delusion when they laughed the first time round.
You don't find BBT funny either way; fine. That doesn't mean anyone who does is wrong, whether they laugh at the un-laugh-tracked version or not.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Go to a con sometime.... you will encounter every geek stereotype you can imagine. While one might legitimately argue that the characters on BBT are exaggerations of what the the average geek is probably like, if what I encounter whenever I go to a con is any indication at all, I would say they are probably not more than a standard deviation or so away from the norm, and I find that it is not remotely an unbelievable cross-section of nerd-dom. Truth be told, it's unlikely many people would consider a sitcom about more typical nerds to be very funny anyways (and while a lot of people don't think BBT is very funny, one only has to look at the ratings to realize that there exists no small number of people that think otherwise).
But honestly, many of the people I encounter at cons make the characters on BBT seem tame in comparison, I have more than encountered my share of Sheldons, Leonards, Howards, and Raj's.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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.
Um, they do have a live studio audience
Wait a moment. There's at least EIGHT people who appear twice in that photo, and it's not a simple stitch together either. Check it out. Definitely the "live studio audience" isn't all that it's made out to be.
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.
So what? It works.
We're social creatures, if a bunch of other people laughing tells us that a bad joke is funny we're probably going to laugh and we're going to enjoy it. Who cares if the audience is over-eager, if you let yourself enjoy it you'll have a better time.
The only reason to drop the laugh track is it ties you to doing punch line comedies where everything is punctuated with a lot of small jokes and thoughts tend to end after the punchline. You couldn't do something like Arrested Development with a laugh track because there's a lot of jokes without specific punchlines, or jokes that overlap.
Of course Arrested Development also got cancelled because they had poor ratings, a laugh track comedy that wasn't so challenging for the viewer might have done better.
I stole this Sig
What I hate about the Big Bang Theory is the temporal asymmetry of a low entropy point just choosing to pop into existence with no understood process for getting that low entropy situation out of an earlier higher entropy situation. Either it did, or it didn't. Either way, it's asymmetric.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.