The show would create episodes featuring modern technology like podcasts, internet dating websites, iPods, blogs, and MySpace.
Fans speculate about what Seinfeld episodes would feature if the show continued into the modern era with cell phones, internet dating, podcasts, blogs, and social media.
When I think about Seinfeld lately, I wonder what they would be up to this day in age? We got to visit cell phone etiquette briefly in the finale with Elaine's walk-and-talk, but technology has changed so much since then. What would some of the episodes feature now? Jerry sending out bits from podcasts on his website? George exploring the world of internet dating? Kramer trading Newman a busted iPod for a new motorcycle helmet? Elaine writing blogs for J. Peterman?
Excellent! What an awesome thread! This should keep us busy a while.
Off the top, I'd say that Jerry would have gone kicking and screaming into the cell-phone world but would eventually cave. Only Kramer, Elaine, George and his agent would have his cell number. He'd never tell his parents he even HAD a cell phone. Uncle Leo would have some kind of scam going on with a guy who knows a guy who deals with stolen cell phones or pirated cell phones. Kramer would have a Blackberry, have no idea how to use most of the functions and would inadvertently be sending crazy messages like "put my jacket back into the pizza oven" to the wrong number and it would accidentally go to the CIA or something and nearly cause the invasion of some minor Balkan country. George would have a basic cell phone and would order take-out from a table in the restaurant he's sitting in when he wasn't getting fast enough service. George's real interest would be his computer, but not his own. He'd be at Jerry's all the time mooching off his computer, scouting online dating services and trying to realisticly photoshop pictures of himself to look like he had more hair and muscles. Elaine would have a Blackberry and the Bluetooth earpiece, possibly two, one in each ear, and would constantly be talking to two or more people at once. It'd be one of those situations where Jerry would be getting annoyed because he couldn't figure out if she's yelling at him, the person next to him or the person on the other end of the phone. Newman would have his own soft-core porn site. Kramer would have a Kramerica Industries website and somehow idiot cult followers would keep sending him money.
Yet Jerry did have a car phone. But the writers seemed to have stopped their technology march there, until season nine, with NIna (belatedly) explaining the World Wide Web, Kramer reading reviews of Bania's act on the internet, and the previously mentioned etiquette of cell phone usage.
Dang. I forgot about that. Now I remember 'The Bottle Deposit" Part 2. The mechanic had stolen Jerry's car and Jerry was calling him on the car phone; or was the mechanic calling him? I can't remember off the top of my head. And there was also another episode when Jerry's car was stolen and he called his car and the car thief answered. I don't remember which episode that was but The Bottle Deposit aired in May 1996 according to the episode guide. I didn't get my first cell phone until 2002 so I'm not too familiar with when they really hit the main stream, but I do know the big internet explosion really began in earnest in 1994; I was working in the business at the time. Jerry just never really struck me as a gadget person.
Well, actually...now that you mention it... I could technically be referred to as a Computer Scientist, but the post actually didn't stem from that. Technology is a huge part of our lives today - I'm just wondering what the storylines would be like if it were set in present day.
I kind of sensed some sort of avoidance (or was it aversion?) to the technology of the 90's: I mean, e-mail and the internet boomed back in the 90's like no other time yet itself is only referred to very briefly or inderectly in the latter episodes (I'm thinking when Kramer wanted to cancel his mail - see the inside look in the DVD and the writers marvelling at what would happen to mail in the age of e-mail, but not marvelling at e-mail itself).
Besides, we always see a computer on Jerry's desk not far from his answering machine (by the window) but I don't recall ever seeing it on or him using it (Kramer never borrowed nor used that). We don't see computers on the desks in front of anyone sitting on any office (any of the bosses or Elaine or George at the Yankees'...)... aside from one scene with Elaine at home using her laptop (only briefly and not to a comic punchline nor storyline, not even a tag), I don't recall anyone using any more technology than an ATM or the cordless telephone (with the old-fashioned telescoping antenna and still I don't recall a pun on that...)
I tend to think the way Seinfeld was written (by the series of talented writers, former and latter), technology (electronic at least) never really was an element of comedy. I'm saying "electronic" because one might count the mean slicer or the frogger as technologies but hey, that's far older technology so I wouldn't count such stuff... Probably it was dismissed the same way that prop comic was marginal (the one who thinks his nostrils are bigger...)
Actually, I recall a scene now during the famous roommate switch speech. When George is outlining the plan, he tells Jerry "...a call will be placed when Sandy is known to be busy at work..." At that point, we see Sandy busily typing away on a computer.
Maybe it wasn't an aversion to technology. Maybe they just avoided it to keep from dating the show. (Making the show seem old to newer generations)
You're right about The Switch scene but one could argue that that character (Sandy) is another "who's Sandy?" - too marginal even in comparison to Jerry's landlord.
What you hypothesize "Maybe [the writers] just avoided [technology] to keep from dating the show" makes sense but is there a reference to any of the writers alluding to that? What I'm saying that this may be true and it sure did help keeping the show from dating (sounds funny on the double-meaning of "dating", huh?) but it's for the writers to tell us if it was intentinal like that.
One last point: I recall reading something in that book Seinfeld and Philosophy around technology and the show: I don't remember what it was (and I'm too lazy to get up and pick the book and look in the back index) but I remember it was indirect and it made sense. I think it was in the article on Peterman and subjectivity... but anyway, that book is full of very interesting claims and ideas and hypotheses that make perfect sense without proof of intent on behalf of the writers.
"LDB.JR" wrote in message news:[email]... On Aug 13, 11:52 am, "Alexis Machine" wrote:
Actually, I recall a scene now during the famous roommate switch speech. When George is outlining the plan, he tells Jerry "...a call will be placed when Sandy is known to be busy at work..." At that point, we see Sandy busily typing away on a computer.
Maybe it wasn't an aversion to technology. Maybe they just avoided it to keep from dating the show. (Making the show seem old to newer generations)