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How a TV Sitcom Triggered the Downfall of Western Civilization
- bcook 11y agoThe author needs to lighten up and pay more attention to the avenues of learning he prefers, rather than what he hates. I have never seen Kardashian's ass in a respected scientific journal. Related: https://xkcd.com/603/ https://xkcd.com/603/
- emodendroket 11y agoOf course intellectually stimulating media still exists, but if it's the minority of what people consume then it doesn't make sense to say the culture is A-OK. Also, what does a scientific journal have to tell us about current events and politics?
- ChuckMcM 11y agoMy sister remarked at how inane the news was and I suggested she try looking somewhere else for her news. Oddly it was more of a revelation for her than I expected. The prototypical "news" show is "crime in your area", "weather in your area", followed by "your area's sports teams performance". Which is more about "what has happened" than "what is going on".
- bcook 11y agoPurely for personal gain... can you explain your post? Are you saying she was surprised by the news' idiocy?
- ChuckMcM 11y agoShe hadn't thought about the question, "What is news?" There were shows which identified themselves as providing "news" and she wanted to hear the "news" but it had never occurred to her that she and the media would disagree on what that word meant. The thing that took her away from single tracking mainstream media was Michael Jackson's death. It was tragic but she just wasn't that interested in it and so many other things were happening at the same time that were getting no coverage that she could see. I suggested she seek out other sources of information and she did. A trip to the library for copies of various magazines and other newspapers and she was amazed at how much stuff she was not getting in the channels that she had voluntarily limited herself too. Her big epiphany was that there is no "this is the information we're not sharing with you" summary. And without that summary, you don't know what you don't know unless you go looking for it.
- jerf 11y ago"but if it's the minority of what people consume then it doesn't make sense to say the culture is A-OK." Then culture has never in the entire history of man been "A-OK". Which is perhaps true. But since it would basically be true by definition, it's not very useful, either practically or academically.
- emodendroket 11y agoI'm not going to venture into whether things were better now or before but our media is toothless and more interested in acting as a stenographer for powerful people and institutions than challenging them.
- CM30 11y agoI've always wondered whether that's an issue with the media now (specifically) or whether it's actually been an issue for its entire history, with the difference being that with the internet, we can finally look up claims made by 'authorities' much more easily. That wasn't really the case in the olden days, where gatekeepers controlled access to the media and a large audience. If your local/national newspaper was lying, you'd only know if you were deeply involved in the subject or went to serious lengths to research it. At which point, so what? You'd have no way to easily publish your findings and get a large portion of society hearing them and realising the current media were lying to people or pushing a distorted narrative. The internet has merely made it easier to fact check people's claims and expose the mistakes made (and lies told) by the 'establishment'. Note: Of course, the media could indeed be worse for various reasons (like say, the internet making decent journalism too expensive to be viable and culling the herd down to 'those best at attracting attention to themselves'), but you have to question whether things really were ever 'good' here, or whether the barriers to entry just made them appear to be 'good'.
- emodendroket 11y agoOK, even though I just said I'd avoid getting into this, I think the Vietnam War really created a sort of golden age where reporters were more willing to challenge the narrative and institutional power than any time before or since. Vietnam (and to a lesser extent Korea) really disillusioned a lot of young journalists who did amazing work -- the Neil Sheehans and Seymour Hershes of the world, basically. It's telling how many scoops still come from reporters who cut their teeth in those years like, say, Hersh, or Bob Woodward. I think before Vietnam journalists largely imagined themselves on the same side. I think after Vietnam, government propaganda got a lot more sophisticated. Besides that, the business model collapsed, making newspapers into supplicants and leading to cutback in resources devoted to investigative journalism. The latest trend of advertorial has newsrooms basically renting themselves out to businesses to write ad copy; how can you really cast yourself as an objective investigator after doing that? Of course, journalists who imagine themselves as part of the circle of power are a problem but were around in the past too.
- bcook 11y agoWould society be better if the majority read scientific journals? I don't know...
- emodendroket 11y agoProbably not. Not everyone needs to be an expert in every conceivable topic. I think society would be better if people had at least a basic understanding of current events so it weren't so easy to mislead the general public.
- bcook 11y agoScience never misleads... /s I guess my primary complaint is that the author assumes the ignorant masses can learn nothing useful from "Friends". Plenty of academians have had epiphanies during a break from studying/working. Anyone who claims to know the single event that brought down Rome is a fool.
- emodendroket 11y agoI mean, I don't care if people watch a show I don't like for fun. My issue is mostly people being grossly misinformed about things they could easily learn (questions like: Does foreign aid constitute half of US spending? Is there a consensus about global warming? Did Saddam Hussein actually turn out to have weapons of mass destruction, and was he involved in 9/11? It's stunning how many people, when polled, give the wrong answers to these questions).
- dave2000 11y agoIt didn't trigger it, any more than Idiocracy did; it's just reflecting it. Friends being popular is just like any content free art (for want of a better word) being popular.
- rejschaap 11y agoThe difference is that Idiocracy is deliberately criticizing the phenomenon, whereas Friends was unintentionally promoting it.
- Mithaldu 11y agoAs a foreigner looking in, i have to ask: How common is physical violence perpetrated on "nerds" in the usa? I ask because while i know it is a popular trope, i have never experienced or seen it in my country, despite being the prototypical nerd and having grown up in a poor area.
- lfowles 11y agoLikewise (rural midwest US), it has always seemed to be one of those TV fictions.
- overdrivetg 11y agoWow, I moved around the US every 3 or 4 years growing up and saw this as a very predictable, common pattern. Although I guess I was mainly in larger cities/schools...
- lfowles 11y agoIt probably does have something to do with school size, perhaps my class wasn't big enough to support the distinct cliques required (graduating class ~20).
- epimetheus 11y agoIt's probably that, I grew up in the Midwest in a rural school district (outside the school district of a ~100k population city) - we had a 400 or so graduating class though. This was early to mid 90s, and it was pretty standard through the 80s too, at least for me. In the mid 90s I fell into a grunge group and they were a bad influence. Instead of getting bullied about being a nerd, it switched to that, and taunts about blowing my brains out with a shotgun (around the time that happened) were pretty common. Edit: to add this perspective though, my wife went to school in a relatively small town (Rolla, MO) and also had a 400 or so graduating class, but she claims ignorance of any sort of nerd bullying and thought it was a TV trope only thing too. She graduated in 2002. Maybe something changed between those dates?
- ape4 11y agoIf I binge watched Friends I'd be a bit angry too.
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- aresant 11y agoRequired reading for HN crowd as an accompaniment: - Why Nerds are Unpopular - http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html - re: Why Nerds are Unpopular - http://www.paulgraham.com/renerds.html http://www.paulgraham.com/renerds.html
- emodendroket 11y agoI imagine this guy is not being entirely serious but anti-intellectualism neither started nor ended with this particular show, nor do I think this character was the first character mocked for being a poindexter. I mean, why not Urkel? Why not something older?
- hellofunk 11y agoSee also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11351665 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11351665
- elorant 11y agoSame story submitted three times. Isn't there a mechanism to prevent something like that from happening? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11354581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11354581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11351826 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11351826 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11351665 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11351665
- jameslk 11y agoSome of us haven't seen the story yet. I'm guessing those who upvote the story are part of that group. Maybe a better mechanism would be a feature that doesn't show you stories (grouped by URL) that you've already interacted with?
- Jtsummers 11y agoThe #<value> at the end of the linked URLs is what's letting them get past dupe detection. It happens sometimes.
- Oli7 11y agoI can't help but agree, though I think the fall started much before Friends with Baywatch, Howard Stern and MTV. All of which (including Friends) I enjoyed. But I always have this uneasy feeling, that this "let's give them what they want" culture, which has spread into everything from politics to tech, has all kinds of costs and consequences. Or maybe I am just getting old.
- CM30 11y agoOh no, not another argument about the world is going downhill/being less appreciative of intelligence/whatever because of some TV show. I mean, I'm genuinely surprised it wasn't referring to either The Simpsons or Idiocracy, but the point's always the same. There was no 'golden age' where nerds were popular and intelligence was always the most valued part of society. People aren't morons because they read about celebrity gossip or buy a ton of stuff or interact on social media. There was always a sizeable portion of the population who didn't care for intellectual parts of life, even back in the days of newspapers and radio broadcasts. Go back even further, and well, you were often deeply unpopular (at best) for having views considered 'dangerous' to society. At least nowadays, it's easier to get involved in subcultures and groups for things you're interested in rather than being limited by geography. At least a lot of things previously considered 'for geeks' are now mainstream in some way. At least there's now a potential option for an intelligent outsider to make their fortune without having to be born into wealth or popular in a large company. Anti intellectualism is not new, it's not increasing and it's certainly not bringing the 'downfall' of western civilisation.
- morsmodr 11y agoActually makes more sense this way
- Grishnakh 11y ago>There was no 'golden age' where nerds were popular and intelligence was always the most valued part of society. Definitely not in America, there wasn't. Other societies are different.
- CM30 11y agoCan you name some of these societies? Because there was anti intellectualism back in Victorian times, at least in quite a few cultures. And every dictatorship/tyranny tends to have some rather extreme anti intellectual policies (the USSR, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge and Nazi Germany were quite prone to murder them en masse). Religious societies don't tend to deal with this sort of thing well either. But I'll be interested in knowing what societies were more tolerant towards 'nerds' and intellectuals and outsiders compared to the US, Europe, etc.
- lokeshk 11y agoAnother title-bait. As per the title, the writer should have shown a "causal" link between the TV sitcom, and the perceived downfall of the Western civilization. Proving causality is hard, but I would have been happy even if the author had shown some level of correlation. Unfortunately, none were to be found. The Western civilization is not same as United States. It presence is from the Western Europe to far reaching islands of New Zealand. This is also something of a problem with HN, where such shallow articles sometimes get pushed up to the front page just because the author decides to write a challenging, and overreaching title.
- rossdavidh 11y agoIt is a problem with HN, I agree, but it's also a symptom of a larger problem with Western Civilization, generally. I blame "The Simpsons". Or maybe "Seinfeld".
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y agoWhat you have to ask yourself before writing these kinds of things is, "When has it ever not been thus?". I didn't see any evidence of that in the article.
- daxfohl 11y agoFunny that "Read a book" and "Learn something" are the lead suggestions from a person binge watching friends. (Even the third, "buy less shit", from a person with apparently a TV and netflix subscription).
- cowardlydragon 11y agoCan you believe these environmentalists that own cars and fly in planes? Can you believe these white social integration liberals that don't live as minorities in minority neighborhoods? Can you believe this health and fitness advocate that once ate a Snickers? Can you believe this yoga instructor that bought lululemon?
- daxfohl 11y agoSure, but this is more like an armchair environmentalist shouting "Hey people ride the effing train!" while sitting in a traffic jam.
- drpgq 11y agoI always wondered why the fact Ross had a PhD was relatively underplayed on the show. It comes up in some episodes, however Ross' job wasn't focused on that much. Probably would not have made for funny television I guess.
- paulpauper 11y ago<i>he show ended in 2004. The same year that Facebook began, the year that George W. Bush was re-elected to a second term, the year that reality television became a dominant force in pop culture, with American Idol starting an eight-year reign of terror as the No. 1 show in the U.S., the same year that Paris Hilton started her own “lifestyle brand” and released an autobiography. And Joey Tribbiani got a spin-off TV show. The year 2004 was when we completely gave up and embraced stupidity as a value. Just ask Green Day; their album American Idiot was released in 2004, and it won the Grammy for Best Rock Album. You can’t get more timely. The rejection of Ross marked the moment when much of America groaned, mid-sentence, at the voice of reason.</i> Looks like cherry picking by the author. Long ago, people thought Elvis and Ed Sullivan were the 'end of Western civilization'. However, the economic events of 2008, and recently accelerated in 2013, seem to have puts the nerds at the top of the socioeconomic totem-pole as measured by income, prestige, and wealth. As housing, energy, construction, manufacturing and other 'blue collar' and 'low-skill' jobs and sectors have faltered, 'nerd' jobs like IT and coding have been very resistant, seeing strong growth and high wages compared to the proliferation of low-paying service sector and 'gig' jobs, as well as the downsizing of middle management and mediocre employees.
- johan_larson 11y agoHow far back can we trace brainy people as the butt of jokes? Before Friends there the Cheers, with Dr. Frasier Crane as the punching-bag of the regulars, and that ran '82-93. Anything earlier?
- CM30 11y agoThe picture on Wikipedia's anti intellectualism page is from 1875, if that counts: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nast-intellect.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nast-intellect.png Obviously the nineteenth century was okay with using intelligent people as the butt of jokes and in negative comparisons.
- gmarx 11y agoI think Cheers was the key artifact that transitioned pop culture from begrudgingly conceding there was value in high culture to valuing itself at the same level and later above high culture. Anti-intellectualism/nerd bullying on the other hand has always been with us
- hariis 11y agoArt imitates Life
- pramodliv1 11y agoMaking the transition from pop culture to nerd culture was one of the best things that happened to me. Instead of "protect the nerds", "become a nerd" is probably better advice.
- joe_momma 11y agoNice story, but Western Civilization started to fall when the gold standard was left behind for some massive credit scheme that created money from thin air. Couple that with the rise of China and India along with the rest of the developing world and you have a recipe for no jobs, bad politics, and poor education. Ross' problem wasn't bad friends, it was entitlement. He always felt that he deserved Rachel when in reality he didn't do anything that impressive or have the self confidence for her to consider otherwise. This was the writers fault, not the actor...
- JauntTrooper 11y ago> Nice story, but Western Civilization started to fall when the gold standard was left behind for some massive credit scheme that created money from thin air. I can't tell if you're joking... you think the fall of Western Civilization started in the 1930s?
- usrusr 11y agoNow I can't wait for that episode where a greyed Ross Gellar has a guest appearance on The Big Bang Theory. Sure, there is a lot of making fun of nerds in that show, but it's so nuanced compared to the old Ross-mocking that one might actually enjoy living in the 21st century. Not mentioning TBBT in a 2016 text about nerd bullying in Friends? Might be tolerable in a tweet, but not in a text that long. (entirely unrelated tangent: R.E.M. ITEOTWAWKI(aiff) as a preliminary Friends theme song? Now that puts the whole show in an entirely new perspective)
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- johan_larson 11y agoYou know, I don't agree that America is a particularly anti-intellectual place. Certainly there are some anti-intellectual strains in the culture. But if the culture as a whole were truly anti-intellectual I would expect college as a right of passage, particularly to elite positions, to be a far more minor phenomenon. In America, whether you go to college, and particularly whether you went to the couple of dozen top colleges, is hugely important. For example, virtually all members of Congress have college degrees. As do all military officers. And good luck finding a major business leader who never went to college. There are some jobs which require very specific training that is available only in college; no getting around that. But it goes much further. In America, some jobs that _don't_ require mastery of any specific body of knowledge still require a college degree, any college degree, just as a test of basic competence. And a society that looks askance at intellectual activities just would not do things that way. It would use other criteria for judging general character and competence: achievements in sports, the arts, the military, something like the Scouts, or maybe leadership in organized religion. If America were truly anti-intellectual, it would not trust a sector as intrinsically intellectual as colleges to do its social sorting. And with much less ability to confer social status on those they admitted, colleges would matter far less.