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The Office was never good.
There. I said it.
Counterargument: The Office is my comfort slop but I also hate myself.
Not only it was never good but also super cringey and unfunny from my experience of watching some episodes of it.
To be fair it is cringe comedy so the fact that it is cringe is undeniable but also on purpose.
That's a good point you're right. I guess I find cringey comedy to be uncomfortable which I can't explain all too well. Parks and Recs on the other hand that's my slop when I am super not in good mood.
Cringe comedy is fundamentally bad, both in quality and moral terms.
I understand not liking cringe comedy but can you explain why you think it's morally bad?
It's an inherently down-punching type of comedy.
I don't think that's true. Cringe comedy certainly punches down sometimes, as many types of comedy do, but to say it is "inherently down punching" seems pretty rediculous to me. There are plenty of examples of cringe comedy where the majority or all of the cringing is being done at bad people, or people who hold power over others. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is a good example. That show definitely has problematic aspects, but pretty much 100% of the cringe moments in it are because of awful stuff the awful main cast are doing. Even going back to the Office, which I don't really like either, I'd argue the majority of cringing that happens is at the expense of Michael, the racist, sexist boss. Obviously both these shows have problematic aspects like most comedy does, and I'm not defending them, but I do think it's kind of rediculous to say that cringe comedy is inherently reactionary, or that it inherently punches down on marginalized people. I won't deny many examples of it do, but that's not because of some inherent flaw in the medium, it's because we live in a deeply racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic and transphobic society, and our popular media reflects that.
IASIP is totally unwatchable for me, I need characters with at least some positive aspect.
From what I've seen of the Office, even the racist sexist boss isn't "cringe" and the butt of jokes because he's racist or sexist or a boss but because he's profoundly socially unaware and inept.
Ya I fucking hated it. The UK version wasn't enjoyable, and the US version is another level of shit.
I’ve never watched a clip, let alone an entire episode and I’m not starting now.
I think it started the mockumentory genre, but I probably wouldn't watch if you're young and not into that genre.
This Is Spinal Tap was around about 20 years before The Office and that probably wasn't the first one.
That style has gotten severely overplayed. It went from a novel upending of the normie three camera comedy to be a paint by numbers trope itself.
Counterpoint: The first season was a slog and I can see why people get turned off it. Not to say it's amazing after but it's pretty good until Steve Carrell leaves.
It's desperately unfunny
i thought it was funny :)