In an interview with AssignmentZero, Douglas Rushkoff answers a question I’ve had for several years: why do I hate sitcoms now even though I grew up addicted to them?
“You create tension or anxiety in the audience member. You bring them into a state where they are depending on you for a release from the anxiety. And then in order to get out of anxiety, they have to accept the solution that you’ve come up with, however lame it might be. So once you as an audience member are no longer dependent on the sole storyteller for a solution to the problem, then you are no longer as ready a target, you’re not as susceptible to the storyteller’s programming.”
There you have it… why sitcoms (and a ton of other things) suck.
