People who watched the show "The Big Bang Theory", what is your opinion on it?

I refer to it as geek culture black face.

As a nerd I loathe that show, it’s vapid. You nailed it.
- I'm a Nerodivergent geek, I had lots of people tell me "you will love this show" so I watched some and now I wonder how those people really see me. So that's kinda fun.
“Nerdface” I have called it.
This is a great way to put it! Totally agree
Wow, that's incredibly succinct and accurate.

I loved it for the first 3 seasons. Then they turn it into the usual couples sitcom and lost all its appeal.

I liked the dynamic of having all main characters "fail" in life. Penny failed as an actress, Leonard failed in dating Penny, Howard failed as a playboy, Raj failed talking to women and Sheldon failed at social integration. They were all adorable losers that had fun while losing. For me it kinda was giving a lot of hope, like you don't have to succeed in life to have a good time.

Then they made them all winners, they all became rich, and achieve all their goals. And all hope was lost. And the message was "you better succeed in life" which was depressing.

The "laughs" all felt from the outside. There was very little humor aimed at the people who would self identify as nerds and way more "haha look at these nerds and how quirky they are" set ups. Sure there are misogynist asshole nerds but usually they need to grow beyond that to find friends and partners. As far as I could tell none of them did. Sheldon and Howard were still super sexist, Leonard was still passive and whiny, but the story pushed forward foisting "perfect matches" on them.

Throughout the whole thing there was very little actual geek humor, and it felt denigrating to actual nerds.

The show isn’t for nerds. It’s for people who believe they are a nerd because they like sci-fi
- I've always maintained it's for non-nerds who want to laugh at cultures they'll never understand. For convenience, all known nerd stuff is crammed into all characters.
It's fun to watch clips where people removed the laugh track. The "jokes" really fall flat.

The autism representation is what happens when a writer has never met another person before.

Fairly accurate sociopath representation though.

If a show requires a laugh track to tell its viewers when to laugh, then it lacks substance enough to cause it without.

I don't agree in general - I like the trad sitcom "sort of live" approach, as in Cheers and early Red Dwarf, but it is definitely used as you say far too often. The fecking Flintstones used a laugh track - an animated show.
But search YouTube for "Big Bang Theory without Laugh Track" and you'll see a dew examples of how shit most of the humour actually is
I absolutely agree. You can find some parts of the show with the laugh track removed on YouTube, and it's amazing to realise how unfunny the jokes really are.

I watched it for a time because other friends and coworkers did and it gave us something to talk about. But, generally speaking, I found the characters to be kinda awful people and while on the surface seemed like my friends and myself, they were at best poor approximations. The show was very clearly making fun of them most of the time, filled with horrible laugh tracks that prompt the viewer.. I eventually just couldn't stand it anymore and left. Honestly, I had forgotten about this show.

Around that same era there was a show called Community that was full of weird people and great storrytelling and was damn near the opposite of the Big Bang. Community is a show I still rewatch from time to time.

I second that. Community was great. The absurdity of the episode with the ABBA soundtrack still makes me laugh.

It made people with either mental or emotional or social dysfunction the butt of pretty much every joke.

Haha, he's awkward.

Haha, he has a weird family dynamic.

Blegh.

It gave the audience the opportunity to laugh at ostensibly intelligent and educated people for enjoying nerd culture.

I honestly think it's an abomination.

I like to describe it as lowest common denominator humour. It’s low brow at best

followup question: what's your thoughts on The IT Crowd? because i have a friend who insists they are the same show, and i disagree but can't form a coherent argument as to why.

The IT Crowd is a show about a group of fools getting into ridiculous situations at work. It’s a good laugh and has some classic moments. My partner doesn’t make or get tv/movie references, but even she can drop references from it into casual conversation.
Big Bang Theory is a bland comedy that wants to be much more than it is - relationship drama, social exploratory, situational comedy. But it tends to fail 90% of the time, and the closer it gets to ‘relationship drama’ the more grating it gets.
- Something I realized while reading this is that I can't think of any quotes from it. Besides "Bazinga", but that was designed to be intentionally annoying and then was used to mock the show.
  I can think of references to basically every other sitcom I've seen, and I can vaguely remember some scenes from BBT, but nothing quotable. My spouse liked it, so I've seen every episode at least once, but it was honestly pretty forgettable.
  My verdict was originally "not bad". But maybe being forgettable was it's best quality.
I haven't watched much BBT, so grain of salt, open to being called out for mistakes.
I'd say The IT Crowd was more centered about a workplace, even if many of the jokes are about their romances, hobbies and personal life, and even if BBT had workplace episodes. The central set of IT Crowd is their basement office, the central set of BBT is an apartment. And I don't think that's a trivial difference, it changes the kind of humor and how relatable much of it is.
Also, a big gripe about BBT was the laugh track. It's normal for sitcoms to have canned laughter, IT Crowd had it too, but BBTs is uncomfortable. Like trk said in another reply, "If there was no laugh track you wouldn’t even know jokes are happening." There are plenty of BBT No Laugh Track edits on YouTube and it highlights how much better it could be without the forced laughter.
Finally, BBT is a lot more US humor than British humor, not to say that as point in itself, but I feel like it makes the BBT feel to me a lot more like "laughing at nerds" despite that being a major factor in BBT. I also feel that Moss is played more wacky and exaggerated than (say) Sheldon, who certainly has strange peculiarities but is played more subtly or realistically, which I feel makes their character more mocking than absurd parody.
(also I just like the theme music much more)
- interestingly it crowd was apparently filmed with an audience.
Comparing The IT Crowd to The Big Bang Theory is like comparing Pavarotti to a braying lamb.
BBT is the braying lamb, for the avoidance of doubt.
- i agree, but why?

First season or two was alright. Not great, but alright. Early on, it felt more like a show made for nerds. There were lots of niche references to nerd culture that the casual viewer wouldn’t catch. They intentionally kept them niche and vague, because they knew that’s the kind of shit nerds love.

But as the series progressed and they began aiming at a wider audience, the references were aimed more at the casual viewer. It shifted from a show that was for nerds, to a show that was making fun of nerds. The viewership shifted away from former nerds, and suddenly it was the former bullies watching it instead.

It truly lost itself when it became a relationship drama. At that point it was just a bland milquetoast sitcom with one-liners and “will they won’t they” types of writing. Name a sitcom and you can probably think of a few solid jokes from it… But that isn’t really true for BBT. It didn’t really have any solid memorable scenes, because they all eventually blurred together.

Usual Chuck Lorre series lifecycle. Many are pretty good, for their 1st, 2nd, seasons. Then they should die gracefully.

It fucking sucks. Also, i'm tired of being compared to Sheldon Cooper. I'm surprised there aren't more fellow autists shit talking this show.

I was there for the premiere... Season 1, Episode 1... I laughed because they referenced funny nerd things! It's a sitcom that I'll get inside jokes on! Oh boy this is going to be amazing!

By episode 3 I realised it was not going to be amazing. By episode 6 I was out.

I have no idea how many sessions they are up to now but if I happen to stumble upon it I legitimately can't work out what's meant to be funny. If there was no laugh track you wouldn't even know jokes are happening.

Pretty sure it ended years ago

I like it a lot.

But I think they dragged it a bit too long.

Reddit trash for people with no standards.

As long as it's "safe", they'll eat it up.

oh boy, i do love me some disgusting amounts of misogony such as that show... shows.

I love it. Watched it when it aired and catch reruns once in a while. I don’t watch a lot of the reruns but do watch them from time to time.

Aged like a first-class bottle of milk.

It started out great but ended up just being mostly sex related humour, not science.

I watched two episodes before bouncing off hard. No idea how it got as popular as it did, because the jokes were just low effort and lazy.

I really like it. It has some nice jokes and I enjoy it quite a lot when I see it

By extension, Young Sheldon features a not at all realistic genius kid, who's arrogant and having zero clue in socialising, but his attitude is extremely confident. I don't find the protagonist likable at all.

Sheldon is by far the worst part of Young Sheldon. In terms of portraying a late-80’s/early-90’s small Texas town, it is nearly spot on. The supporting cast is solid too.

In my opinion, it's not as bad as people claim it to be, but It's far from being great as well.

I think it was easier to watch when it came out, but from memory I enjoyed it. I remember thinking the show was kinda accurate regarding nerdy references (compared to other movies and series of the time) and I thought it was cool.

Shallow and pedantic

Hmm, yes, shallow and pedantic.

I like it. It's dumb fun, but it's funny and I like to laugh.

Never seen it but parents did , it's horrid !

I binged all seasons and it cracked me up to watch the cast go from eating a ton of food on screen to just gesturing with pickles and working out 😂

There was something about it I found obnoxious. It was just kind of lazy and, although the cast did a decent job, the writing was meh.

The big bang theory killed my parents.

It’s for people who don’t know comedy

I thought it was funny when it came out, but it hasn't aged well at all. Very cringey and stereotypical, with a slight tinge of homophobia.

Laugh track bullshit that basically tracks as “you-know-of-star-trek-then-you-know-nerd”

Call them all nerdy!… then give them miracle careers, a girlfriend with porn doll voice and no real heartache and yea…

Nerd humor. I liked it.

It ain't no Mike & Molly, though. That show was HILARIOUS, and unapologetically for adults only. Really great show.

hey penny! i´m a nerd without social skills. here´s a niche pop-culture reference you won´t understand. BOTSWANA

I loved the nerdiness of the show but it was more like they were making fun of them instead of laughing with them.

I totally related to almost all of the culture since I’m a giant nerd

I couldn't even complete one episode. It was so dumb.

i liked young sheldon more but i still watch big bang theory today as a guilty pleasure. it's not perfect by a long shot but it's fun. i preferred sheldon scenes more than leonard or anyone else though.

It was OK for time it was out. Then they made the young Sheldon crap and now I can't even watch reruns

I didn't like it.

It's for nerds that hate themselves.

I tried to watch it around 2012 and couldn't stand it

It was fun for the first 4 to 5 seasons and after that I couldn't stand it anymore.

My brother, my dad and I watched it together some 10+ years ago. I think people get too angry about it. Most sitcoms aren't really funny, BBT isn't unique. "Oh it has too much of a laugh track" they all do. I also think this idea that the show makes fun of nerd culture gets taken a little too far as well, for the same reason. The characters are sitcom characters. Name any sitcom and there will be dozens of youtube videos about how the characters are horrible to each other and don't make good decisions. If they were decent, rational people then there wouldn't be as much drama, so no show.

In our dub, they forgot put the canned laugh in the first seasson, you just hear silence when they make a pun, at that point i thought it would be a tragedy/comedy series in a sweat/bitter sabour. Then they put canned laugh and i leave