“Is It Just Me?” by Sasha Alex Sloan ft. Charlie Puth, Saturday, November 5, 2022
THE SHOW FRIENDS IS OVERRATED. My Seinfeld fans Facebook group would agree with this statement. Of all the tangents I could break off and address from this song, I feel it’s time to address the great ‘90s NBC TV debate. There has been contention between the fans of both shows. Seinfeld came before Friends and arguably Friends’ success is indebted to Seinfeld’s pushing the boundaries of the situation comedy. Friends is a more refined comedy with a clear plot direction and an embodiment of the American dream in the ‘90s and ‘00s: go to college, graduate, live in New York City, meet up in coffee shops. Seinfeld was far less glamorous. Jerry, George, and Kramer had nowhere near the sex appeal of Joey, Chandler, and (gulp) Ross. Writers Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld insisted that the characters not advance or even develop in a significant way—no serious relationships, no dramatic moments that would bring tears to the eyes of the viewers. Even when George gets a job working for the New York Yankees, it’s a fluke and viewers are just waiting to see when and how he’ll mess it up as he messed up with his engagement to Susan Ross. And spoiler alert, he does. Friends, however, is a show where we watch and want good things to happen to the six. Not that we don’t want the best for the Seinfeld party of four, we watch Friends and envision ourselves in our mid-twenties, graduated from college without student loans living our best lives in a spacious New York City apartment. But didn’t How I Met Your Mother do the same thing only better? Didn’t Will and Grace? Didn’t every sitcom after Friends do that? Listening to “Is It Just Me?” makes me feel not alone in my opinion that maybe others think that Friends is overrated.
AM I JUST HIGH, OR AM I KINDA RIGHT? Ever been with a group of people who seemed like the exact opposite of you just from the things that they love? They are talking about how great The English Patient and you fell asleep twenty minutes into the film? In “Is It Just Me?” Sasha Alex Sloan attempts to cut through the bullshit and state her opinion. She wonders if other people feel the same way as she does or if she is aberrant in her thinking. So in the spirit of Sloan, I decided for the rest of this post to share some things that I might be alone in my thinking about, but I think they’re worth discussion:
1. I’m Scared to admit that I don't know a lot about the world, like what are gooseberries? You read about them in old stories.
2. I’m also embarrassed about when I should know something that everyone else probably knows. For example, in high school I wondered if oxen had gone extinct. Eventually I learned that there is a broad range of cattle, and there’s something about castration that makes and ox an ox.
3. Parliament is more effective than congress because the recriminations both sides make in congress waste time rather than legislating for the people.
4. Congress subsidizes the lives the wealthy making the poor work for the rich, while the rich’s money works in an bank account in the Cayman Islands.
5. Circuit parties sound exhausting.
6. I’ve certainly have consciously tried to be less genteel for being perceived as effete.
7. I feel like my vocabulary is stunted so I try to make up for it by reading and looking up words and using them in my writing. And I realize it might seem unnatural, but it’s better to practice before I actively try to promote my blog. Maybe I’m just weird.
Charlie Puth remix:
Official video:
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