Netflix

In the age of Netflix and Amazon, where content is consumed like morning coffee, a ritual so ensnaring one can’t imagine a life without it, SitComs or Situational Comedy shows have become an essential part as well. If there were ever a to-do list of life, fashioned after an adrenaline rush post reading an influencer’s Instagram story tagged #YOLO, one would seldom try to sneak in a good old comedy beneath a pile of near impossible goals.

You see yourselves in the character!

After recently having re-watched ‘How I Met Your Mother’ for the nth time, I found myself listening to what was a podcast featuring the writers and stars from the show. Josh Radnor, who played its lead character, Ted, remarked that after a point in time the “Show ceases to be yours, and it becomes the fans’. Ownership of the show is with them. ” (somebody needs to tell this to J K Rowling )

That is absolutely true. People tend to resonate with the shows and relate to them in their own ways. You feel a real sense of ownership with things you watch on that idiot box, mobile, et al . The plots unravel in ways that bring to fore emotions you never knew existed; you don’t have to have had a breakup to feel for the hopeless romantic in Ted, you might just need to have had those moments of vulnerability when you felt raw.

Still from ‘How I Met Your Mother’ ; *Source: Hollywood.co*m

One notable mention to this effect for me was a particular scene from the episode ‘Time Traveler’s ‘ in season 8 of HIMYM, when Ted is sitting alone at a bar, staring at the ticket to an event he had initially planned to go to with his friends, who are now too busy with their lives to come along. As Ted rues over his loneliness, he imagines himself sitting with another lead character on the show, Barney, along with the future and past versions of himself and Barney’s that emerge out of nowhere like djinns. In this otherwise seemingly comical scene, it is Barney who wants Ted to come along to watch Robots vs Wrestlers, and an unwilling Ted feigns an obdurate look to show his displeasure. As they then sit to discuss scenarios to what might transpire if he does take Barney up on his invitation, imaginary Barney leads him to the reality by saying that he is merely a figment of Ted’s own imagination, and his comments are merely borne out of Ted’s own desire to go to the match. In his loneliness, this mirage of being cajoled by a friend to come along seems to be the more comforting lie since the reality, as imaginary Barney puts it is, “Look around Ted, you are all alone.”

They make you happy

Within the realm of an idealistic life of a sitcom, where weirdly grown adults are either seen sitting in a coffee shop or a bar all the time, and adult responsibilities seem to take care of themselves, there are moments of joy that uplift your mood. After all, you don’t consume such content to run you through the indelicate travesties of life, rather look to soothe the pains of life with these cheap thrills or joys.

There are endless moments of silliness, sophistry, outright juvenile behaviour and failed attempts at adulting that makes these shows funny, relatable and topical through the ages. Seinfeld, a sitcom that ran from 1989 to 1999 will still make you cry out of laughter, and will continue to draw an audience even if Netflix/prime doesn’t nudge it to your home page every now and then. No wonder Netflix paid $500 million in 2019 to acquire the rights to screen Seinfeld on its platform.

While there are plethora of funny moments to run through, I will leave you here on this post with one scene from Seinfeld, which is not only hillarious but instructive and worth trying out.

Waking up to the piercing sound of the alarm clock early in the morning, rushing through a breakfast of soggy cereals gulped along with a glass of juice, and then spending forty minutes of the cab ride balancing the laptop on legs that are forced together were my routine that I had once begrudgingly adopted, and one that I somehow now miss. COVID-19 has created upheaval of a different magnitude the world over, not only bringing loss of life in its wake, but also uprooting the livelihood of many. So, my routine not having stood the test of time in backdrop of once in a century occurrence of a pandemic is hardly something that should evoke concern or merit attention. But, the new normal of ‘Work from Home’ and a life in isolation is another pandemic, which while genial in its concern for the human anatomy, is fairly hostile towards the human mind.

I am concerned about the shrinking distance between home and the workplace; once a few kilometers away, it now precariously stands a chair away, which finds itself wedged in the narrow space between the table and the desk in my room. Seldom, the workplace crawls next to me on the bed, and interrupts my evening marathons watching Netflix, since who cares about privacy anyway. The notification tab on the laptop is an incessant pop, sometimes finding itself play such beats that would put many YouTube popstars to shame. And, yes, now let’s address the elephant in the room. As the lockdown completes over 8 months, the adage, “Well, this could have been an e-mail” has caught on. However, having been subjected to ridiculous e-mails that are akin to a boss asking, “Hey, could you pick up that glass and bring it near my mouth”, I would go a step further and say, “Hey, this shouldn’t have been an email at all”. Why delegate nonsensical banal tasks to employees just because you are too busy to open up your laptop, or in some cases, unwilling to switch tabs and search on google. This level of delegation or outsourcing should raise eyebrows, or in the pandemic age, earn people a ‘rolling eye’ emoji on MS Teams.

The fact that this a white-collar grouse isn’t lost on me. I do understand that there are so many jobs out there that require people to risk their lives everyday. So, I should reconcile with my fate and just be happy. I should also perhaps draw comfort in the fact that freedom from a miserable job can just be a ‘Logout’ away.