Kramer From Seinfeld and Purposely Ignoring Social Norms

I have a similar origin story to a lot of people in the games industry in that my dream of making games incubated in my childhood. The late 80s and early 90s were a beautiful time to grow up as far as the evolution of computer games was concerned.

But you know how adults would ask you what you wanted to be when you grew up? Sometimes we’d respond with something fantastical like wanting to be a superhero mermaid. Or because that capitalist master-slave indoctrination starts early by design, we’d tell our teachers we wanted to be nurses and chefs like our parents or secret agents like we saw on TV. After all, my fifth grade yearbook says I wanted to be a computer programmer since I figured that was all who made games. Making a living in games wasn’t really presented as something one could do let alone something with multiple disciplines that existed outside of this seemingly enchanted pocket of California. I mean, I didn’t even discover that game narrative design was an actual career choice until my early thirties.

But I guess saying “computer programmer” made more sense than what I actually wanted to say: “I want to be a girl version of Kramer from Seinfeld.”

Seinfeld was ubiquitous and totally unavoidable if you grew up in the 90s and it’s so awkward to watch now. Some of the humor has held up along with the chemistry between the ensemble, but it’s so odd to think that TV executives almost passed on it because they thought it was too Jewish when to 30-something me it just reads as too white. The show also feels semi-documentarian as to how 90s technology worked because even the most basic smartphone just decimates a majority of the plots. Which makes it feel congruent to how Seinfeld was such a revolutionary show for the time until got mercilessly copied specifically to the point that it got a page on TV Tropes.

Nevertheless, of all the different icons from the era that gave us infinite numbers of AOL discs and floral dresses paired with Doc Martens, Kramer stuck out to me in my childlike wonder. He didn’t seem to have a regular job, which was already appealing. He was always getting into some kind of adventure.

Of course, the entire show was based on the minutiae of daily life, lampshaded by George Costanza as “a show about nothing” when they pitch their series to NBC. Having these tiny inconveniences and slip-ups turn into these Herculean battles with indelible effects was merely a typical episode, transforming microcosms of daily life into an adventure. But Kramer in particular had the most fun. He’d inadvertently end up on these adventures without even trying and that held so much more appeal to me than expecting every day at school or work to more or less be the same.

There’s no way a child can ever realistically predict what their future looks like. But as I wrestled that soft clay from my parents, teachers, and random fucking strangers still telling me who to be long after attaining legal adult status, and started shaping my own life and present? I knew I wanted to soak up as much of the human experience as possible. Not just to make up for lost time from a harsh childhood, but in feeling completely isolated from the outside world prior to my family getting internet. I wanted to see and do so much more than what I was presented. Rather than sitting down to dinner where I knew what I’d get, I wanted to be at a party where I had no idea what would be served on various hor d’hœrves trays. Biting into tiny slices of life. Sampling the colorful, the spontaneous, the unknown throughout the night and each array being different every time.

Kramer also had his people. Not Jerry, George, and Elaine or the tertiary characters who’d have repeat appearances. Sometimes we only heard of them like Bob Sacamano then plenty of others got an own episode or two like Poppy. But he seemed to have a person for every kind of thing you could possibly need or want, or could be a fixer — or catalyst — for the batshit situations that the gang would inevitably find themselves snarled into.

This is something I’ve been thinking about after numerous discussions with people about how the world is so much more open and interconnected that it used to be, but simultaneously people have become more closed off. TV shows of yore and the cavernous array of new shows on Hulu and Netflix present having a regular group of friends as something 30-something adults fantasize about rather than experience in real life as day-to-day work culture and social infrastructure make sure we never get those slices of life.

While there’s many legitimate criticisms of Kramer’s character, who was apparently based on Larry David’s actual neighbor, his dubious income sources were frequently lambasted but something I’ve honestly found relatable in adulthood. In fact, there’s even a whole article dedicated to his entrepreneurial endeavors some of which were just get rich quick schemes but there were quite a few respectable hustles in there like the coffee table book about coffee tables. Most people simply don’t know there’s other options aside from working for an employer all your life. Hell, I’ve found the attitudes towards Kramer’s various hustles to be pretty similar to what I and numerous other risk-takers have faced: people assume you’re either a broke-ass or a millionaire once it’s revealed that you don’t have a boss and haven’t gotten W-2s since True Blood was still on the air. When you have your own ship, you can be making well into six figures and you’re still going to get asked how you won’t get a “real job” as if your labor is fake.

Kramer was always trying something new whether it was for money or for the hell of it. How many of us stagnate because we don’t want to step out of our comfort zones? Or have to monetize every single thing we do, or only make a decision predicated on potential profit?

We’ve forgotten how to just live. Just letting your actual desires guide your decision-making because there’s never going to be this magical point in time when you’ll have enough time or money to make that game or have the physical appearance you want to say hi to that person you find fuckable, we’re all under perpetual imperfection and need to enjoy whatever adventures ensue from the minutiae of everyday life. Try a million different things like Kramer, maybe even pursue them to make some money and let your charisma and risk tolerance mature on its own.

There’s so much more to life than what we do for money, getting married, having kids, and whatever else gets counted as a milestone at your funeral. Just because someone strays from the norm doesn’t mean they’re weird or unhappy: probably the opposite. And hey, who wouldn’t want to know more about furniture expressly designed to smash the bejesus out of your shins or smell like the beach without going to the beach?