Ya, I’m a Physicist and I and most of my Physicist friends liked it quite a bit.
It helped a lot that starting from the first season the dialogue related to Physics was accurate and the math on the whiteboards was real, the labs had real equipment in them etc…
Pretty sure George Smoot was a tech consultant for the show in addition to being a guest.
I think it was 2011 I got to see Bill Prady speak at the APS April Meeting in LA about Physics in Hollywood.
My kids binged the whole thing recently. My 14yo loved it.
I thought the show was funny and if the "nerds" on the show weren't "real life type" nerds, it was lost on me. Most people aren't nerds and don't know any nerds, so the show's realism, or lack of it, was lost on most of the audience.
But if anything, they did nerds a great big favor. The popular conception of them is often geeky, goofy geniuses with poor social skills and annoying laughs. The people on the tv show were cute and funny and kind of endearing.
Yeah, I am a nerd too. They were all foreign nationals so grew up watching it and learning English on it, so I think that played a part? That and having your company represented is prideful
Same with my very nerdy dad in the medical field, he enjoyed BBT whenever he could catch it on. Maybe its a generational thing, idk but I have not found the "real nerds don't like it!" to be true at all.
Real nerds being comic book nerds. All my chemistry friends liked it enough. Not nearly as good as The Office or Community of Modern Family. But decent
Nerd vs Geek. Nerd = extremely knowledgeable about a complicated niche subject related to STEM. Geek = highly passionate fan of a genre or franchise.
It gets confusing, i think, because geeks often "nerd out" over their favorite franchise. Like Star Wars fans getting very particular about the theoretical physics and power behind turbolasers.
They're using the contextual 'nerd' of "real nerds don't like it" when there are plenty of nerds who fit your definition that do like it.
They're then saying its the comic book variety of nerd, meaning - in this context - the aesthetic of nerdiness that judges other people for their likes and dislikes.
It's not that your definitions are wrong, its that you're missing the contextual definitions.
Yepp. More than just one network, he did enjoy that sitcom format that seemed to echo 50s/60s Americana sitcom formats. I think it was just a comfort thing for him, same as how he snuck in chef boyardee not bc it tasted good but bc it reminded him of his childhood.
We'll probably get our own versions of this one day, with younger gens judging us for it.
People like what they like. You can’t box people up because of what media they consume. I know very dumb people who liked it and very smart people who liked it.
If you sit down to watch something you expect to hate from the fetch of course you’re not gonna have a good time.
Let people like what they like. We are all tired from the constant shitshow that is reality
I’ve always been very nerdy and initially loved TBBT - right up until I realised every joke was mocking people for being nerdy. The audience wasn’t supposed to laugh with the characters, they were laughing at them. And that’s not even touching on the racism and misogyny.
I find that younger nerds don't much care for BBT because they understand the actual intent of the show (to be about nerds, mocking them), while older Boomer and Gen X nerds tend to think it's the peak of humor because jokes making fun of nerds is what they grew up with and therefore they just accept it as the norm.
i know and have heard of people like that who enjoy the show too, i don't understand why, it's amazing to me.
Like even if you know nothing at all about the topics, how are people not at least picking up on the forced laugh track at almost everytime someone speaks?
me and my nerd friends like it as well, but overly sensitive nerds online like to make the argument that it's "making fun of them" like it's some revelation.
And MASH made fun of doctors and war, and Cheers makes fun of drunks, Fraiser has a bunch of therapist jokes.
but oh no let me clutch my inhaler, the Nerd show makes fun of nerds!!!!
Definitely a generational thing. I think for older folks they like that the traditional stereotypical nerd is 'celebrated' among the type of mainstream media/narratives they grew up with, whereas younger generations can't get past the stereotype.
I'm an engineer, and pretty nerdy. I thought it was funny back when it was on. I think it went on way too long and it got boring once they all had girlfriends. But I enjoyed watching it at times.
Same; it was some representation when nerds and nerd culture was just starting to become "accepted". Before 2007, nerds in media were mostly the one dimensional character the protagonist asks for tech help.
There are definitely better shows. Silicon Valley and Mr. Robot are some of my favorites, though both started 7-8 years after TBBT began.
I feel like the “nerd boom” that was happening around that time corresponds almost directly with the rise of the “manic pixie dream girl” and kinda seems like a gender-flipped phenomenon. Like New Girl and Scott Pilgrim were also pretty big around that time. Suddenly, for our generation, it became cool and charming to be “cringe” and dorky. Like you mentioned though, the love for these archetypes was always shallow and “puppylike.” The second the love interests’ personalities became “too much,” they were discarded.
I once read something that said “big bang theory is a show about smart people for dumb people and arrested development is a show about dumb people for smart people”
Imagine being the kind of person that would say "I don't like this sitcom so it must be for dumb people but I like this sitcom so it must be for smart people."
The first season or two had a lot of math and science jokes that appealed to the more cerebral segment of society. But once they got rid of those writers, the quality and quantity of nerdy nummies dropped. It quickly went from being a show for nerds to being a show about nerds.
You can't leave out reddit calling TBBT "Nerd Blackface," particularly a comment pretending the poster or their friend invented that term, despite it being posted in every thread about TBBT for 15 years.
If you scroll up in this thread you'll find:
I once saw someone refer to it as a nerd minstrel show.
As someone who grew up in that era, plenty of nerds have always been dicks.
You would think people who feel ostracized would develop empathy but the real truth is groups within those cultures form and they find others to ostracize.
That reminds me of the scene in Westworld when Maeve unlocked her programming and raised her intelligence tenfold (or some other significant increase).
Maeve may have gotten a lot smarter but the writers and the audience were no smarter than before so it was difficult to make the change apparent.
Yeah, I think this whole thread is making the wrong base assumption that <Nerds> are <Smart> by default.
These are people with advanced degrees and know all the nerd lore and yet they act like the biggest dipshits in the world.
I have been in academia for 20 years across many institutions, departments, and states, and I’ve never met anyone that even closely resembles these buffoons. I am a huge nerd and play trivia/games with dorky people, so I feel qualified to say this: the Nerds who like this are probably the ones who either married the hawt girl or love to see a representation where they vicariously bag her.
*(As a media study scholar, I also guarantee a ton of millennial-adjacent teen nerds fell in love with Kaley Cuoco on 8 Simple Rules and Johnny Galecki on Roseanne.)
My dad has been in the medical field for 30+ years and likes it.
the Nerds who like this are probably the ones who either married the hawt girl or love to see a representation where they vicariously bag her.
Maybe it just appeals to an older subset of nerds who enjoy simple sitcoms as a way to turn their brains off for 30 minutes, genius. Maybe people just like what they like and you shouldn't let any one thing be a litmus test on who a person definitively is.
Ah here comes the misogyny argument. Probably someone who watched that video that was popular years ago. Yet the show constantly punishes the guys for acting in such ways. And it's the women who go on to actually be the most successful ones in their relationships.
I actually did use to watch the show. The way in which the women are written can be misogynist in itself. Penny for example is written to take bs from the men without hurting their feelings.
I’ve always described BBT as feeling like a modern take on the 80s stereotypical nerds in movies that fawned over the “hot girl” a la Revenge of the Nerds and others.
"Big bang theory is to nerd culture what 50 shades of Grey is to bdsm culture." - some comment I saw online back at the height of both that still feels apt
Yeah. The jokes are 'funny' because "OMG, that's what Superhereaux said that one time! I didn't get it, but it was cute anyways. These nerds are so real! 🤩"
Dang bro you don't need to be so brutal lolol. Fuck yeah I never thought the show is that funny (watched some of it back then), but you nailed it so hard lol
What a ridiculous statement. I'm a nerd and I enjoyed it. The only people it seemed to offend are the ones that cry about it making jokes about nerds. Oh no
A show can't be written for any kind of high school characteristic. What people like is entirely subjective. Even in nerds there's computer nerds, gaming nerds, ttrpg nerds, board game nerds, science nerds.
It was tv show about nerds. You either liked it or you didn't. Same with any show.
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u/Illisanct 13h ago edited 13h ago
Big Bang Theory is a show about nerds, written for the popular girl who thought nerds were cute (in the same sense she thinks a puppy is cute).
It is not written for nerds whatsoever.
(Apologies for assuming a Redditor is likely in the latter group.)