Seinfeldia: How a Show About Nothing Changed Everything
Updated: Aug 8
As breezy as catching up with an old friend, and as surprising as an uncle regaling you with stories you’ve heard a dozen times, Jennifer Keishin Armstrong’s Seinfeldia: How a Show About Nothing Changed Everything is a quick, lightweight read that manages to entertain despite offering little new for fans. Surely it’s fans like me for whom the book was written, but without access to the show’s creators or its stars, scant primary material, few original insights, and little to no thoughtful analysis, Armstrong has left us with nothing but the emotional charge of nostalgia. Not that there’s anything wrong with that …
Sure, a book about one of the greatest shows of all time could have been so much more. Perhaps one day that book will be written. But it’s hard to hold up a book about a show that claimed to be about nothing to exacting standards. After all, we’re talking pop culture not political history. Besides, at its worst, Seinfeldia is merely an anthology of stories, anecdotes, recollections, and ephemera most fans already know conveniently assembled into an easily digestible package. At it’s best, however, the book reminds us why we loved—and continue to love—Seinfeld in the first place, and, if nothing more, manages to stoke the smoldering embers of our fandom back into a roaring flame.
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