The Loop
Comedy writers use predictive text to craft bizarre post-modern ‘Seinfeld’ script
Ask any Lithuanian Orthodox-worshipping Seinfeld apostle what continues to draw them back to apartment 5A every evening between the prime syndication hours of 7 and 8pm, and you’re likely to get similar versions of the same answer: It is the truest approximation of society never canceled by a major broadcast network. Sure, Kramer becoming the prime suspect in a serial killer investigation and George dating Marisa Tomei don’t exactly ring true, but it’s what they say about humanity—about our crucifixion of eccentricity and blasé superficiality—that continues to resonate even now, nearly 20 years after we left Jerry to heckle hecklers in a State Pen cafeteria.
As technology has taken hold and civilization has morphed into little more than a rotating array of tangentially-related buzzwords, however, our definition of (and grip on) reality has become increasingly nebulous. With our culture randomizing and splintering by the second, the question thus becomes: Is it even possible for Seinfeld to exist in 2017 AD? And, if it did, what would it look like? Well, as it turns out, former Clickhole writer Jamie Brew—thanks to nine fellow comedy writers and the predictive text technology that helpfully suggests “DUCK” every time you're on the verge of a total reactor meltdown—now has the answer.
Feeding character-specific scripts, as well as stage directions, from Seinfeld Season three into predictive text keyboards offering 18-word options at every stage, Brew and his team thus auto-populated a brand-new, fully modernized Seinfeld script that is just as random, incoherent, and hilarious as the dumpster-raccoon-baby-alien-paralegal culture it is now tasked with satirizing. Check it out:
One part sitcom, one part Madlib, this three-page script reads like an episode of Seinfeld set in the Black Lodge, featuring a myriad of hilarious just-wrong-isms like..
KRAMER: Hey, Hey, Hey, great idea for a big sponge: Make it so large you think it’s got a fat clock in the middle.
plus…
JERRY: What’s the problem with minimalism? You know, if you enjoy being around alcoholics, I’m gonna go ahead and never return that dog.
And who could forget classics like…
GEORGE: I’m kind of like the captain of hygiene.
Like what you read? Check out more of Brew’s predictive algorithm experiments here and don’t forget to follow @Seinfeld2000, who have been pumping out irreverent, grammatically challenged Seinfeld parody for years now.