Other contemporary series focused on friendships — “Friends,” “Living Single,” “Will & Grace” — still predominantly followed a common trajectory, with career, relationship and family goals a driving force that often ramped up as the shows neared their ends. Instead of relying on the common late-season fallback of someone getting pregnant and having a baby, “Seinfeld” did the opposite, devoting story lines to diaphragms, the Today Sponge and condoms.
Despite the nihilism suggested by its “no hugging, no learning” motto (and by much of the characters’ behavior), “Seinfeld” did exhibit a worldview and priorities that were refreshing and, for me, far more aspirational and inspirational. Not despite the fact that these were flawed people uninterested in perfection, but because of it. Even with their abundant neuroses, they lived in the present, sought fun and were loyal to the tightknit, pretense-free friendships at the show’s heart, the kind where your people know your bad parts and love you anyway.
Today — as cracks in the facade of hustle culture continue to spread; as a growing library of books and articles promote the value of rest and fun; as more people delay or forgo marriage or children — real life seems to be catching up with “Seinfeld.” Even from a less rosy perspective, with the realization that long-held images of adulthood may not be as attainable as before, the show has taken on a fresh relatability, offering new reasons for a little self-deprecating humor.
At the end of the series finale, which was watched by a now unimaginable audience of 76 million people, the gang winds up in jail after that trial in which a parade of character witnesses, many of them wronged by the defendants over nine seasons, attest to their unethical behavior. (For the record, I struggled with the episode — like I do with many sitcom finales — for veering too far from the show’s distinct vibe, the primary source of my affection.)
But if you look at it from a different angle and put some of the silliness aside, you might glean a metaphor about those who don’t stick to the script, choosing instead to shamelessly indulge themselves in a culture that rarely appreciates indulgence without guilt. Theirs was a cell for people who declined to opt in, but at least they had each other.
In a way, my thinking this deeply about it might run antithetical to the spirit of “Seinfeld,” famously known as a show about nothing. Well, OK. In that case, yada yada yada, it turned out to be about pretty much everything.
Maya Salam
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