[ocdtrekkie]

As someone who fits almost all of the boxes for people Big Bang Theory has made fun of, I still enjoy the series immensely, as I have since it started. Sometimes I wonder if it just hits too close to the truth for some people, or if on the opposite end, they are too detached from the sort of people it characterizes and hence don't see where it draws from.

Silicon Valley is a very different show, but definitely on solid ground. And it's unique in that it seems quite popular amongst people its blatantly making fun of.

[toyg]

BBT laughs AT nerds, reinforcing stereotypes in non-nerds and reassuring the mainstream about its superiority.

SV laughs WITH nerds, satirising the excesses of a culture that is presented as filthy rich and dominant beyond belief. It also deals with the actual wet dreams of the culture in a fairly realistic way.

Think about the material that a dim bully could get from BBT (tons), versus what he could get from SV (very little). That’s all the difference.

[rhino369]

>BBT laughs AT nerds, reinforcing stereotypes in non-nerds and reassuring the mainstream about its superiority.

BBT definitely laughs at nerds. But I don't think reassures the mainstream about its superiority. The characters on BBT are depicted as god-tier geniuses that are successful at doing important work. The nerds are the protagonists.

SV on the other really sticks it to developers and VC. I don't get a sense the SV writers respect was the valley does at all.

SV is just about 20 times funnier though.

[Balero]

I haven't watched a great deal of BBT, i'm not a fan, just what I've caught watching with other people.

I've never seen an episode where they were depicted in actually doing work, just in talking about their social group and the character interaction. They could have all been sitting in a coffee shop or bar for all of the links to their job it had. Whereas SV does have content about their life outside of work, a lot of the comedy comes from their "jobs".

I also really don't think the BBT people are depicted as genius'. One episode I do remember is when one of them was struggling with a physics problem with electron behaviour. He finally solved the problem that had been plaguing him (a 'super smart' physics researcher, because he started thinking of the electrons as waves, and not as particles. Which any 16(17)-year-old physics student would have realized in about a minute.

[ocdtrekkie]

BBT has quite a few episodes portraying work at the university, but it's definitely a minor amount, and it's not really intended to be scientifically accurate bleeding edge science. Big Bang Theory is far more worried about getting right details of various super heroes than presenting an education on theoretical physics.

[walshemj]

BBT is punching down not up.

[derangedHorse]

I think in both shows there are occasions where you laugh with AND at the "nerds". I think the problem is a lot of people judge BBT without even seeing more than a couple episodes.

[dlivingston]

IMHO it doesn't matter who a show laughs at - the essence of comedy is offense. My problem with BBT is that it just isn't funny