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Comment by DonHopkins

4 years ago

Seinfeld Effect:

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/seinfeld-effect

>The Seinfeld Effect is a phenomenon closely related to the Family Guy Effect (the idea that when a meme is referenced on a popular television show, it dies out). The Seinfeld Effect occurs when a TV show references an in-joke belonging to a subculture (in most modern cases, the Internet) and makes it mainstream, causing the show's viewership to mistakenly believe the meme originated with that show.

>The effect is named after the 1989-1998 sitcom Seinfeld's habit of referencing little-known ideas, jokes, and phrases, such as "Festivus," "yada yada yada," or "not that there's anything wrong with that," and making them extremely well-known through the show's populararity to the point that many have the misconception Seinfeld invented these phrases (for the purposes of this article, 1992 is listed as the meme origin date, as that was when the episode "The Contest" popularized the idea of masturbatory celebacy contests). [...]

Seinfeld Is Unfunny Trope:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunn...

>There are certain shows that you can safely assume most people have seen. These shows were considered fantastic when they first aired. Now, however, these shows have a Hype Backlash curse on them. Whenever we watch them, we'll cry, "That is so old" or "That is so overdone".

>The sad irony? It wasn't old or overdone when they did it, because they were the first ones to do it. But the things it created were so brilliant and popular, they became woven into the fabric of that show's genre. They ended up being taken for granted, copied and endlessly repeated. Although they often began by saying something new, they in turn became the new status quo. It's basically the inverse of a Grandfather Clause taken to a trope level: rather than being able to get away with something that is seen as overdone or out of style simply because it was the one that started it, people will unfairly disregard it because it got lost amidst its sea of imitations even though it paved the way for all those imitators. That is, a work retroactively becomes a Cliché Storm. [...]

Thanks. I was wondering if there was a name for this after my teenage kids were rather underwhelmed by the first Matrix film the other night—especially the Bullet Time sequences.