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It's quite amazing how good a job Silicon Valley does considering how badly wrong it could go (I'm looking at you Big Bang Theory). I'm sure there are quite a few industries that could have similar comedies about them from people who really know what the industry is like. W1A is another great example.
This Venn diagram always gets me. https://i.chzbgr.com/full/8291744000/h3159FC59/
It's quite amazing how good a job Silicon Valley does considering how badly wrong it could go (I'm looking at you Big Bang Theory). I'm sure there are quite a few industries that could have similar comedies about them from people who really know what the industry is like. W1A is another great example.
This Venn diagram always gets me. https://i.chzbgr.com/full/8291744000/h3159FC59/
It's quite amazing how good a job Silicon Valley does considering how badly wrong it could go (I'm looking at you Big Bang Theory). I'm sure there are quite a few industries that could have similar comedies about them from people who really know what the industry is like. W1A is another great example.
> Big Bang Theory Oh how I loathed that show, especially at height of its popularity. I got so tired of smiling and nodding (or rolling my eyes, depending on who it was) as non-technical people at work and even my mother-in-law made it clear they thought of me when they watched that show (simply because I was the "smart engineer", so obviously a huge nerd with no social ability). None of these people were my age thou…
Amazing anecdote from a 2016 New Yorker article on the show: > During one visit to Google’s headquarters, in Mountain View, about six writers sat in a conference room with Astro Teller, the head of GoogleX, who wore a midi ring and kept his long hair in a ponytail. “Most of our research meetings are fun, but this one was uncomfortable,” Kemper told me.... > “He claimed he hadn’t seen the show, and then he referred ma…
New Yorker, not NYTimes article.
I love the running joke that the main characters work on fake technobabble, but the background companies (particularly the TechCrunch episode) are babbling about stuff that sounds fake but is real tech. “Making the world a better place through Paxos distributed consensus!”
I mean, it would be kind of odd if the show's writers came up with something novel and instead of rushing to patent it decided to make a TV show out of it. Meanwhile, it's OK for the other companies to work on things that already exist–it adds to their run-of-the-mill-ness.
I found that the first few seasons (maybe first 2 or 3) did a great job at parodying the Valley. They were truly uncanny to watch for me sometimes, and I don't even live in SF. The past few years, the quality degraded significantly IMO. It mostly turned into "The Office but with developers and geeks!!" - which doesn't make it a bad show, but not as witty and thought provoking. I wonder if it's past the point where it…
I always describe Silicon Valley (the show) as being solidly in the Uncanny Valley ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley ). It's humorous and absurd, but at the same time so close to reality it's unsettling.
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even Beavis and Butthead captured defiant male teens pretty well
Beavis and Butthead are hugely underrated. I recall people making fun of me for watching it back in the 90’s. It was almost the only TV I ever watched.
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This chart holds only in the sense that the Kardashians play dumb caricatures of themselves. They may cater their brand to the lowest common denominator but they most certainly aren’t dumb themselves. They essentially parlayed Robert Kardashian’s friendship with OJ Simpson into a media empire; there is something to be said for how media savvy they are.
You could also make the same argument about Paris Hilton. By all accounts, she's a really shrewd businesswoman.
I always describe Silicon Valley (the show) as being solidly in the Uncanny Valley ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley ). It's humorous and absurd, but at the same time so close to reality it's unsettling.
Not only did I have that exact same conversation with my coworker the day previously about the exact brand of yogurt, on post-analysis we're pretty sure our company has stocked the exact same spoons they used in the show.