TIL that Jeremy Renner had an app, which is truly the comedic gift that keeps on giving. Why isn't this referenced more often? Gold. Also, turns out I love Succession to the point that I even love reading about hating it – so cheers.
Sounds like you burned yourself out looking at memes before watching. Not for everyone, the first episode gripped me right off the bat. I never saw a meme of the show until I had already finished it though.
"It's a heartless show, and that is maybe what I hate the most about it. It’s a piñata spree all the way down; once you scrape all the jokes off, it’s clear that Succession never feels the need to question what it might mean to need something beyond hollow validation and meaningless wealth." Absolutely nothing wrong with disliking a show, but this is just a terrible critical read of Succession! The show is all about the kids *desperately* craving the love and attention of their heartless father, and how meaningless wealth is as their lives collapse around them, it's not even subtle. Again, it's great to dislike or hate something, but you're just flat-out not seeing what the show puts in front of you!
do the commenters (from many posts, not just this one) who are dunking on you for being a philistine hater who Can’t Let People Enjoy Things know the series is called hate read?
"Succession banks on pointing out the well-trod irony of an upper class that enjoys unbelievable privilege while remaining no more interesting because of it."
"...once you scrape all the jokes off, it’s clear that Succession never feels the need to question what it might mean to need something beyond hollow validation and meaningless wealth."
Sigh. BREAKING: Reactionary, anti-intellectual contrarian proud of misunderstanding Succession. News at 11.
This makes me sad. This show is carefully and beautifully crafted and filled with both hilarity and heartbreaking moments, and all you can think about is memes--oh, and your laundry. What a waste.
I also watched the first episode and decided it wasn't for me. I still participated in the discourse via memes, and I think that was the correct option.
I would have liked it as a book, as a show, I agree it wasn’t Beyoncé. It was well written, it was well acted, it just left little room to have much else to wrestle with beyond thinking that it was well written and well acted and “wow-what-a-zinger, fuck rich people.” I mean, I have a lot of free time but watching it felt like it was asking for too much of that time from me. I read somewhere that something like ten percent of Americans had watched and were hooked on the show, and that roughly felt to me like the ten percent (top) that could be in on the joke; it did what it wanted to do well, the slaps landed, but the rich have still not been eaten by ironical portraiture, if that was the point. Aaron Spelling’s 80s and 90s familial dynasty dramas were better at achieving that end; the settings were exclusive, the characters overly petty and ambitious, the writing overly vapid and simplified, stereotyped, pushed - but I was far more interested in “who shot JR Ewing” than I could ever get about who might succeed Roy. Maybe that’s nostalgia for a tv drama of days past, (tho I’m not super old, so I watched Dallas some 20 years after it aired via Netflix and was a baby human when it actually ran), but the Spelling dramas, imho, hit on all the same themes as succession and did so in such a way that gave the audience more to wrestle with at the end of the day. Vapid, hollow characters who had no sense of themselves living the life of glitz and power that folks at the time (80s) collectively aspired to be among the very few lucky enough or ruthless enough or innovative enough to be granted access and entry into, ala capitalist participation. Yet the powerful in Spelling Dramas were always nepo babies, Spelling having his own nepo baby star in his own Dynastic teledramas. But yeah, succession gave no room to see its characters as anything but brutal and sardonic, and tho it did this well, it felt sort of tedious to endure after that point had arrived. “These people are monsters!” Got it. Whereas “who shot jr?” = “I must know! Because I want some resolution, some justice, some something more to make my investment in the characters plight feel worthwhile, to me as a viewer.”
TIL that Jeremy Renner had an app, which is truly the comedic gift that keeps on giving. Why isn't this referenced more often? Gold. Also, turns out I love Succession to the point that I even love reading about hating it – so cheers.
I came because of the hype. I stayed because of the portrayal of generational trauma cycles and how hard they can be to break.
Sounds like you burned yourself out looking at memes before watching. Not for everyone, the first episode gripped me right off the bat. I never saw a meme of the show until I had already finished it though.
"It's a heartless show, and that is maybe what I hate the most about it. It’s a piñata spree all the way down; once you scrape all the jokes off, it’s clear that Succession never feels the need to question what it might mean to need something beyond hollow validation and meaningless wealth." Absolutely nothing wrong with disliking a show, but this is just a terrible critical read of Succession! The show is all about the kids *desperately* craving the love and attention of their heartless father, and how meaningless wealth is as their lives collapse around them, it's not even subtle. Again, it's great to dislike or hate something, but you're just flat-out not seeing what the show puts in front of you!
do the commenters (from many posts, not just this one) who are dunking on you for being a philistine hater who Can’t Let People Enjoy Things know the series is called hate read?
"Succession banks on pointing out the well-trod irony of an upper class that enjoys unbelievable privilege while remaining no more interesting because of it."
"...once you scrape all the jokes off, it’s clear that Succession never feels the need to question what it might mean to need something beyond hollow validation and meaningless wealth."
Sigh. BREAKING: Reactionary, anti-intellectual contrarian proud of misunderstanding Succession. News at 11.
I wish I knew who actually wrote this. I don't care one way or the other about Succession, but this writing has heart.
I don’t like it so I’m superior to everyone that does. How original.
This makes me sad. This show is carefully and beautifully crafted and filled with both hilarity and heartbreaking moments, and all you can think about is memes--oh, and your laundry. What a waste.
I liked Succession but yeah, _Monk_ is really really good
I made it to the third season before realizing most of the memes weren’t worth the participation in the media groupthink project
I also watched the first episode and decided it wasn't for me. I still participated in the discourse via memes, and I think that was the correct option.
I can’t possibly watch Succession because it looks exactly like one of those shows that will remind me of my job. Nope.
It’s a hate watch. That’s the point.
I couldn’t even hate watch Girls.
I would have liked it as a book, as a show, I agree it wasn’t Beyoncé. It was well written, it was well acted, it just left little room to have much else to wrestle with beyond thinking that it was well written and well acted and “wow-what-a-zinger, fuck rich people.” I mean, I have a lot of free time but watching it felt like it was asking for too much of that time from me. I read somewhere that something like ten percent of Americans had watched and were hooked on the show, and that roughly felt to me like the ten percent (top) that could be in on the joke; it did what it wanted to do well, the slaps landed, but the rich have still not been eaten by ironical portraiture, if that was the point. Aaron Spelling’s 80s and 90s familial dynasty dramas were better at achieving that end; the settings were exclusive, the characters overly petty and ambitious, the writing overly vapid and simplified, stereotyped, pushed - but I was far more interested in “who shot JR Ewing” than I could ever get about who might succeed Roy. Maybe that’s nostalgia for a tv drama of days past, (tho I’m not super old, so I watched Dallas some 20 years after it aired via Netflix and was a baby human when it actually ran), but the Spelling dramas, imho, hit on all the same themes as succession and did so in such a way that gave the audience more to wrestle with at the end of the day. Vapid, hollow characters who had no sense of themselves living the life of glitz and power that folks at the time (80s) collectively aspired to be among the very few lucky enough or ruthless enough or innovative enough to be granted access and entry into, ala capitalist participation. Yet the powerful in Spelling Dramas were always nepo babies, Spelling having his own nepo baby star in his own Dynastic teledramas. But yeah, succession gave no room to see its characters as anything but brutal and sardonic, and tho it did this well, it felt sort of tedious to endure after that point had arrived. “These people are monsters!” Got it. Whereas “who shot jr?” = “I must know! Because I want some resolution, some justice, some something more to make my investment in the characters plight feel worthwhile, to me as a viewer.”