Why You Should Hate Along My Side

For the longest time, I have made sure to exclusively surround myself with comedy as a relief from the drag of everyday life. Without realizing it, I started to morph into these characters that I spent my time with. 

During middle school, I made Parks and Recreation my personality, I spent all of quarantine watching The Good Place (one of my favorite shows ever), and now I find myself rewatching The Office as if I were on The Office Lady Podcast, too. (I love Angela Kinsey and Jenna Fischer!) 

Of course, these are not the only shows I consume myself with and these will not be the only shows I talk about. I somehow manage to fit in seasons of TV shows during semesters of schoolwork and working my part time job, almost as a means of preventing me from going crazy. 

All that to say is that I have put in the hours and am willing to put in more to understand comedy TV shows. They are what I live for and getting a good laugh is a great place for life to start. 

My goal is not to come on here and say that you should hate Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory.  Why, yes he is annoying and has quite obvious character flaws, but I do not want you to walk away from comedy or TV in general because of that. Rather, I am here to present the idea that the main characters from some of our most beloved shows are purposefully crafted to make us hate them, to the extent of teaching us something.

I can hear it now. "I don't watch comedy for a life lesson. I watch it to relax and turn off my mind!" Guess what, I do too! That is why I hate many main characters. My hatred is not pure malice, but instead a reaction for the way I get tricked into learning. If I wanted to learn something purposely, I'd turn on PBS.

However, even the slightest character analysis creates the argument that these characters have more than one job through their design. My mission is to explore and show these designs that make us all take a double take. 

I'll do this a pretty systematic way. My plan is to rewatch a few episodes of a comedy TV show, then explain why the hate I have accumulated is justified. What this usually means is that I have hate because I learned something. When I do learn, I'll share!

I am completely open for comments with suggestions and ways I messed my analysis. How would I know I am wrong without someone telling me? Or maybe I could I have missed something completely, and I want to be as transparent as possible. I am also completely open to comments with suggestions of the next show I should dive into, too!