Robinson 1!

Joshua Robinson

Yada Yada Yada

I had volunteered to submit my essay on the earliest available day for my Advanced

Creative Nonfiction class. This was my chance to write for a new, captive audience, and I wanted to transcend the “typical sports fan meathead” cliche that followed sports journalists everywhere.

I had one chance to make a lasting first impression that would last through the Fall semester and beyond.

So I wrote a story about my experience watching the Kings win a Stanley Cup Finals game with my brother. But before I submitted the essay, I passed it along to my mentor; he had devoted a substantial part of his college education to creative writing, so I assumed that he would lend me a tremendously valuable and profound criticism.

I was somewhat surprised by his first impression.

Because yes, he promptly returned my call. And yes, he gave me some positive reception.

And yes, he gave me some negative criticism. And yes, he voiced his hesitations about the content. And yes, he offered some suggestions on tweaks within the story. And yada yada yada.

But of course I finally asked him the question: “So what did you think?”

His initial reply: “I like it. Your voice is very… Seinfeldian.”

Of all the ideas and critiques and themes I’d imagined to possibly describe my essay, referencing a 90s sitcom was not one of them.

My confusion didn’t come from a lack of familiarity with the show itself; as a matter of fact, I love Seinfeld. I have all nine seasons on DVD; I’m virtually unbeatable at “Seinfeld Robinson 2!

SceneIt”; I even have a strange collectors package comprised of Seinfeld-themed playing cards, salt and pepper shakers, and a napkin dispenser. I have every second of every episode virtually memorized. And when I struggle to sleep at night, any random episode can ease me to sleep in a heartbeat.

If there’s one person who could critically understand a Seinfeld reference, it was me. But

I just didn’t get this one. What in the world did it mean to have a “Seinfeldian voice?”

Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld playfully coined their sitcom as a “show about nothing” during its original run from July 5, 1989 to May 14, 1998. Their greatest ideas came from real- life observational humor, not from some contrived equation or formula of writing. There was no

“How to Write a Successful Sitcom” guide to follow; for the young Jewish comedians, an idea was either funny or it wasn’t, and it had to be unique.

The show followed Jerry, as himself, his best friend George Costanza, ex-girlfriend

Elaine Benes, and neighbor Kramer, affectionately known as the “Seinfeld Four.” Jerry had no acting experience, but Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Michael Richards

(respectively) brought a wealth of experience to their roles. Most importantly though, according to Larry and Jerry, they were funny.

The show had a slow start to say the least. Nobody seemed to understand their mischievously observational humor; audiences couldn’t make sense of entire episodes taking place in line at a Chinese food restaurant, or looking for a car in a parking garage, or an exploration of the privileges and responsibilities that come with having a friend’s spare set of keys. The lack of viewership seemed to say, “Hey guys, we just don’t get it. Where’s the story?” Robinson 3!

No, they didn’t get it. Not yet anyway. But Seinfeld pressed on.

The history of the show would dramatically shift in its fourth season, as Seinfeld continually forged its comedic tone. The show’s first Emmy award came from it’s most controversial episode; the 11th episode of the season, “The Contest,” followed the Seinfeld Four betting $100 each on who could abstain from masturbating the longest. (Elaine was forced to wager $150 since, according to the men, she had an unfair advantage.) In other words, who would become “Master of Their Domain?” And while the episode never actually said the word

“masturbation,” they left no doubt as to what the subject was.

NBC censors were aghast: where did this ragtag cast and crew find the nerve to talk about such offensive content on the air? What gave them the right? But despite their protesting and uncomfortable feelings about the episode, Seinfeld was doing nothing wrong. Everything was implied, and nothing was set in stone. Television audiences would fill in the blanks with their own minds, amongst the sanctuary of a laugh track to fortify their own fleeting chuckles. It was as if during this half-hour block of primetime television, Seinfeld was giggling along with its audience, saying “Don’t worry, relax. It’s ok to laugh at this. It’s funny.”

The episode was a smash hit, and the show began to blossom. Seinfeld grew feverishly into a ratings juggernaut. A pronounced group of national viewers still didn’t like the show, but it was gaining critical acclaim and notoriety. The show was neurotically charming, and constantly questioning and challenging the ideas of social etiquette and relational motivations. Now they had the laughs to go along with the subject matter, and so they began to push the boundaries of risk and believability even further. Robinson 4!

All the while, though, there were two rules that needed to be maintained in terms of content and subject matter: it had to be original, and it had to be funny.

Over the course of the remaining seasons, the Seinfeld Four dropped a junior mint into the open chest cavity of an unconscious man during an operation. They tormented a curmudgeonly soup-stand owner known as “the Soup Nazi.” They saved a whale from a wayward Titleist golf ball. They drugged a woman specifically to play with her classic toy collection. They created a new holiday. They ruined a concert pianist’s career with a Pez dispenser. And they even second-handedly killed George’s fiancé when he purchased inexpensive wedding invitations with toxic adhesive glue.

At one point, as if to criticize themselves, they produced an episode in the eighth season entitled “The Yada Yada Yada,” which Rolling Stone Magazine included on its top ten list of

Seinfeld episodes. In the episode, George’s new girlfriend uses the expression ‘yada yada yada’ frequently in conversation, skipping over the most interesting parts to arrive at the conclusion.

George becomes irritated with this unusual conversational trait, but once her stories are fully revealed, the hidden details are often despicable and criminal in nature. Meanwhile, the rest of the characters begin to use the expression to glaze over their own hidden secrets and inadequacies, of which the audience is fully aware. The Seinfeld Four constantly redefined themselves by what they were willing to accept and shun in other people, and perhaps “The Yada

Yada Yada” provided them with a chance to confront a calloused reflection of themselves. But as long as these social conventions were shallow and relatively harmless, it could maintain the format of the original golden rule: it had to be funny. Robinson 5!

So the show’s signature comedy continued to explore relationships, but in ways that remained stubbornly inconsequential and trivial. Jerry’s laundry list of break-up excuses includes several gems: he dumped women for having “man hands,” for being a “low talker,” for eating peas one at a time, for being too perfect, for being too good, for not giving him a massage, for

“shh”-ing him while watching TV, for having a laugh like “Elmer Fudd sitting on a juicer,” for being “a sentence finisher,” and even once for believing it possible to get gonorrhea from sitting on a tractor in a bathing suit.

After nine seasons, Seinfeld followed Jerry’s words of advice in “The Burning,” an episode from the show’s final season: “Showmanship, George. When you hit that high note, say goodnight and walk off.” TV Guide called it the greatest television show of all time, and countless critics considered it to be the greatest comedy that this generation will ever see. The ripples of influence on popular and common culture still permeate after more than sixteen years.

I still didn’t understand the reference. Was he saying that my essay was “a story about nothing?” Was it obscure and random? Was it funny? Was it callous and abrasive? How the hell is this story in any way “Seinfeldian?!”

Perhaps I was viewing his comment in the wrong light.

As a result of the show’s success, the term “Seinfeld moment” emerged in popular culture. It has since been echoed in casual conversation, literary journals, and even public speeches by political officials. A “Seinfeld moment” is one that captures randomness and comedy that seem to appear in every day life, moments that we choose to question and explore for the Robinson 6! pure sake of questioning and exploring. There is no need for resolution, because the entire purpose of the moment is to analyze it for its “oddness,” particularly in regard to concepts of social etiquette.

Take, for example, this conversation from the fifth season episode entitled “The Lip

Reader”:

Elaine: So I guess you’re not going to Todd’s party on Friday.

George: Well I can’t now, Gwen’s going to be there.

Kramer: Well she should be the one that shouldn’t go.

Jerry: Well if a couple breaks up and have plans to go to a neutral place, who withdraws?

What’s the etiquette?

Kramer: Excellent question.

Jerry: I think she should withdraw. She’s the “breaker,” he’s the “breakee.” He needs to

get on with his life.

Elaine: I beg to differ.

Jerry: Really.

Elaine: He’s the loser. She’s the victor. To the victor belong the spoils.

At its core, this is framed as nothing more than a casual conversation between friends, debating both the subtleties and complexities of interrelatedness and social norms. And we’ve all had moments just like this.

Could these moments express the definition of that which is Seinfeldian? Is it the random, light-heartedness from which we examine proper etiquette in every day life? Is it the questioning of these unspoken rules to which we blindly follow without criticism? Robinson 7!

When we strip away the laugh-tracks, what is left behind?

And then, almost suddenly, I understood.

To use a Seinfeldian voice is not to be funny, or observational, or to present a situational comedy for others to enjoy. It is not specifically intended to challenge social norms, or criticize seemingly unnecessary structures of etiquette.

Seinfeldian means something deeper. To relate to one another at the deepest, most comfortable level at which we can all exist. To open a direct and inspirational connection with someone else, to grab hold of them, and to say that everything is going to be ok. To show that for right now, in this moment, everything is ok. To ask “why we are here” as a more important question than “where are we going” or “where have we been?”

To get to the punchline. And to allow ourselves to laugh about it.

Seinfeld had very few over-arching story lines. It just didn’t seem to fit the characters. For the most part, every episode brought new relationships, new conflicts, and new goals. More often than not, each of these things were given concrete resolution by the end of the episode. So what was the point of the conflict if they met such quick and simple resolution?

Perhaps the creed of “Seinfeldianism” would go something like this: “The color of life comes not from the experience of it, but from the curiosity about it.”

I didn’t expect everyone to love my essay, and they didn’t. Even though my best efforts at story structure and paragraph work failed to rise to the level of a Seinfeld episode, I take delusional comfort in the fact that the show had plenty of critics and audiences that never Robinson 8! enjoyed the show either. Today, as it runs in its sixteenth season of successful syndication, plenty of people still dislike the show. Larry David even said once that “if everyone loves what I’m doing, then I’m doing something wrong.”

And that is the greatest strength of Seinfeld’s legacy: the unapologetic way in which it curiously explored life, delivered the punchline, and laughed at itself.

At the end of “The Contest,” nobody is proclaimed to be “Master of Their Domain.” For

24 minutes, the four characters tormented themselves and each other with seductive hospital sponge baths, a particularly rousing yoga session, and the discovery a neighboring woman who left her blinds and curtains open as she wandered her apartment naked. Yet none of this investment paid off in the end, and the premise remained unfinished. Nobody was proclaimed as the winner.

Why?

Because yada yada yada.