I’m on my way to becoming a certified Sitcom expert!

If there’s one thing that I enjoy doing during my free time, it’s watching sitcoms. They are light, energetic, and funny, and they have a way of making you forget about all of your daily problems while also focusing on real-life issues that you, me, and everybody may have at some point. It’s the sitcom paradox: they take your mind off of domestic and regular issues by talking about domestic and regular issues. When you put it like that, it shouldn’t work, but because of some strange magic working its power around the universe, it actually does, and I’m totally here to take advantage of it. 

For some reason, we always get attached to all the characters in sitcoms as if they were friends of ours, which makes little sense because the point of a sitcom is not to be heavy or too emotionally taxing. The episodes are short, with lots of jokes and those insane recorded laughs in the background to tell the audience when it is a good time to laugh. Granted, sometimes that can be a tiny bit annoying, but it’s part of the sitcom charm, and we have already accepted it. The characters tend to be more of a stereotype than an actual human being, but they are still so relatable that we feel like we know a friend who is just like that. The general goal of the plotlines is for them to be simple to follow, and even when they get more serious, they find a way to tackle the subject in such a way that it makes it sound a lot less serious than it actually is. 

Think, for instance, of Ross’s life from Friends. He got divorced after his wife figured out that she liked women instead, but oh surprise, she was already expecting a baby with him. That’s the first two episodes, for your information, and everything gets more and more complicated in his life after that. If we keep talking about Friends, the introduction of Rachel’s character happens when she barges into a cafe after escaping her own wedding with a man she didn’t love. Want to talk about a different show? Great, let’s take Two Broke Girls. Caroline finds herself completely broke, without friends, family, or a house after her father is locked up for embezzling and stealing, and we find out throughout the show that Max’s life has been anything but easy. It sounds crazy to start off so strong with a 20-minute format, but they make it work, and that’s what makes them so special. 

Shows like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones tackle dark and heavy subjects in a way that’s interesting but doesn’t bother to take the edge off of any of it. Sitcoms rely on a very specific kind of dark humor: they take complicated but very human plotlines that may hit close to home for many people, and then they make it look like everything has an easy fix and nothing is such a big deal. It’s disconcerting and baffling, and there you have your comedic effect. 

I think it’s amazing that we can all sit and watch sitcoms, get attached to the characters because we relate to them, and have a spectacular time watching them navigate the complications of adult life. And in honor of all that, here I bring you a list of memes to remember why we all love sitcoms.