Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
This is not a trend piece per se, but rather a possible trend observation. After all, I’m just one guy, and everybody knows that it takes three people doing a potentially weird or silly thing to merit a trend piece. But hang on for a second, because I may be onto something.
Last week, I rewatched half of Transparent, which is hands-down my favorite show from last year. Early in the season, a Jim Croce song — “Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels)” — plays a pivotal plot point, triggering some family memories and inciting at least one character to get his shit together when it comes to his on-again, off-again girlfriend. (Spoiler: it doesn’t work out. Jim Croce songs aren’t magic, after all.)
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=735ABV3jqbA]The important thing is that I’ve been listening to a lot of Jim Croce’s greatest hits compilation Photographs & Memories, which was featured in the pilot episode of the series. I don’t mean to underestimate this: I only listened to Photographs & Memories over the weekend and thought probably more about Jim Croce than I’ve ever thought about Jim Croce in my entire life. And I kept tweeting about it, only to discover I wasn’t alone.
When I began to tell Decider’s Editor-in-Chief Mark Graham about my thoughts this morning, he stopped me after I mentioned Jim Croce. “I’ve been listening to a lot of Jim Croce lately!” he exclaimed. I replied, “Transparent, right?” He said, “Yes! Because of Transparent!”
If all of the Best of 2014 lists that hit the Internet (including many of our own) in the last few weeks say anything, it’s clear that a lot of people are thinking about Transparent. It is a very well-received, critically acclaimed series. And it’s not just a lot of praise for its brilliant writing and acting, but also the overall aesthetic quality of the series that makes it feel more like a long film that a TV show.
I mean, how weird is it that I’ve seen so many people express an otherwise out-of-the-blue for a folk-rock song from the early ’70s? But, again, Transparent is a very popular show right now — at least within the circles I run.
But then, on Saturday, I noticed another strange thing while watching an episode of Friends with a couple of, heh, friends. While laughing about the implausibility of the episodes we caught, the insane hairstyles, and the gigantic West Village apartments, We weren’t necessarily going in order; of the four we watched that night, one was in the sixth season, two in the third, and one in the second.
There was a moment in the second season episode we watched in which Rachel walks into the guy’s apartment in an outfit she was wearing to go on a date, and all of us in the room were like, “Holy cow.” Naturally I tweeted (and Instagrammed!) a grainy iPhone image of my friend’s TV:
Once again, I got plenty of replies from people who said they were struck by the same scene. Now, Friends just landed on Netflix, so I suppose it seems natural that plenty of folks would be bingeing through the series (as for myself, it was just a random night; I’m still trying to get through all of Gilmore Girls, which I’ve been watching since November). Still, it seems particularly serendipitous that so many people are on the same wavelength when it comes to cultural properties available on streaming platforms. It’s not like we’re all sitting around watching the ABC Thursday night lineup and ecstatically tweeting back and forth to each other about what we’re seeing broadcast on our TVs at the same time.
Streaming has always felt like a solitary activity — hell, most TV-watching has that feeling these days (and the New York Times is on it!). And that’s precisely why this weekend’s strange streaming synchronicity was so powerful for me, making me feel like someone had pulled an IRL record-scratch, stopping me right in my tracks. So here’s my question: is this something you’ve experienced too? Let us know in the comments below!
But for now, let’s all agree: Jill Soloway turned us into Jim Croceheads.
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