PLEASE, you, and EVERYONE, if you haven't already, embrace the One True Only God YHWH Jehovah, Only One Jesus Christ His Only Begotten Son and Lord and Savior of our souls and the Only One Holy Spirit. God is good. God is love. Jesus is Lord. Jesus IS coming. Your soul depends on it! I have seen God act in my life. He saved my soul, changed my heart, changed my mind, helped people through me, took care of people in my life, people I hurt before I found God. God is the only reason I was able to reconcile with my dad before he died. God worked through Jesus Christ to save our souls. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. Be baptized in The Holy Spirit, and if He wills, water as well. Repent of your sins, accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit into your heart, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, that all who believe on Him shall not perish but have eternal life. Jesus Christ is The Way, The Truth and The Life. No one comes to the Father Jehovah God but through Him. Not long after I got saved I prayed to God for help understanding the Holy Bible, and that same day someone knocked on my door asking me if I wanted to understand the Bible. The Holy Bible says, "love thy enemy", "turn the other cheek", "If your enemy is hungry, feed him", "if he is thirsty, give him a drink", "pray for those who persecute you", "do not repay evil for evil". LORD willing, all humans may commit sin of almost every kind (gay, straight), and that's wrong, and all humans sin, as God tells us through the The Holy Bible, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." The Holy Bible also says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
I think Ted’s wife should’ve been in a whole season. It would’ve been more emotional when she died. Introducing her and killing her off in 5 minutes felt really underwhelming
Thinking about how sitcom characters always go back to a place of comfort and have a home base they share with their friends definitely makes me think about the expectations vs reality of adulthood and the loneliness that can come with it
I remember a scene in this show where the guys are with some ladies and trying to get into a nightclub. They ask the bouncer if they can get in, and the bouncer says "not with the ladies, we have too many ladies in there right now". The guys ask the bouncer if the ladies in the club are hotter. The bouncer says "I don't know about hotter, but they're definitely drunker". The punchline is that they choose to go in and prey on the drunker women. Pretty dark.
himym has many offensive jokes, but that one actually isn't it, because at the end of the episode they realize they were themselves the assholes and feel ashamed of their behavior. well, at least ted does. like, we're not supposed to root for them and the show (and the characters) explicitly say so
@@eduardoo31thank you for common sense and contextualising these jokes and scenes! This is always missing from the discourse. Why even make a commentary on it if you don't conceptually discuss it?
ummm that's the setup for half of barney's jokes lol not saying its okay, just this moment isnt that dark compared to a lot of the other stuff thats said
I agree with OP here. Saying it's okay because Ted 'learned his lesson' is kind of like saying a crime is forgiven because somebody confesses their sins in church. The thing is, Ted is always learning his lesson. He watches Barney be a complete predator and he just shakes his head and looks away. At the most he might make a comment signalling he doesn't condone the behaviour. But he doesn't call Barney out; he doesn't end the friendship (not until Barney does something that impacts him directly). He ignores it, enables it and joins in surprisingly often. And when Ted acts up, the blame is often put on Barney for being a bad influence. Suggesting that good men are like this under the surface. They just need a little push to bring it out. And they need to constantly self regulate to be a good person. Ted is our barometer for 'good guy', placed in contrast to Barney. He is put up on this pedestal by the show and other characters to be the ethical one, yes flawed (by being 'too good' with his romanticism and idealism) but the clear choice for a romantic partner and friend. When he goes too far in disregarding women's boundaries or autonomy it is excused because his 'intentions are good'. And yes he learned his lesson in this instance that was so brazen... but what about the times he goes along with Barney and lies to women for the chance to sleep with them? It's okay because he's not the initiator, because he isn't desperate for sex the way Barney is (could take it or leave it), because despite what he DOES he still SAYS that he is a good guy who respects women and wants commitment. Characters need to learn lessons for episodes to have structure but Ted doesn't really have any convictions that can't be influenced. He's all talk and smokescreens.
I never felt like rewatching it because it was all leading to one thing - finding out how he met their mother. But the ending was really bad and made everything that happened before that feel pointless. Like, he started with Robin & ended with Robin. The mother was just incidental.
The mother wasn't incidental, Tracy marks a very important part of Ted's life, when he decided to stop remembering and focusing on every detail and instead just live and love her, that why the final season takes place over 2 days and the last two episodes take place over a decade and a half, after meeting Tracy ted was happy, and then she died and he did the one thing he hoped he wouldn't, get stuck in his stories, the just realized that he still had love for robin while listening and that the timing was finally right, so to help their dad they give him a push and he takes it. Also to quote Theodore evelyn mosby himself "because sometimes even if you know how somethings going to end, that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the ride" maybe that will help.
It is spelled in the final by the kids, but the writers should have changed the ending when they saw the interactions, maybe just him telling the kids the story was about how one can live many stories to then share those with the people they love, they have the scene where Tracy thinks she doesn't knew one of his stories but then she realizes she does, how they ended up sharing their whole life, he share everything with their mother, and now he was sharing everything their mother knew with them or something like that, it wouldn't have been perfect, but it would have been better than to stick to a nearly no one really developed as a person finale
The Barney situation feels really similar to the whole issue with Carman from South Park. The writers want us to see him as a bad person but merchandized the hell out of both charecters making it hard to see them as unlikable. It's really weird looking back at all that.
Yeah Barney really created a gang of misogynistic boy fans obsessed with the show and it’s “”””values”””” … I swear as long as himym was huge my dating life has been horrible, and guys who treated girls poorly just casually referenced the show as motivation to their actions. I hated it I know it wasn’t the only piece of media spreading these ideas but it was the only one that I heard being used as justification. (I’m Italian and I don’t know if this is a global thing, just my two personal cents)
9/11 started my chemical romance, twilight was originally a fanfic of mcr but was later changed to twilight, 50 shades of gray was originally a twilight fanfic but was later changed, thus 9/11 caused 50 shades. and how i met your mother is somewhere in there too
It really sucked that with Barney they actually went the route of "Serial womanizer can only respect the woman that is OF him, his own daughter who he cannot be sexually attracted to". Lame...
The sitcom bible says: Thou shall not have flawed characters or downright bad people in thy cast. Cmon... Barney is a shit guy, that's the joke. You really shouldn't take a look at Seinfeld, or it's extreme version, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, that features sociopaths
@@miguelpadeiro762 The problem is not that Barney is a shitty person. The problem's that he's never really allowed to grow as a person, and is often allowed to escpare from the consequenses of his own actions. So it really ends up feeling as if he gets off scot free, regardless of what he does. Other shows can get away with their main characters being being shitty because said characters either face consequences or get some development. HIMYM does neither.
I actually firmly disagree. I think he would never change and that's reality. It would be too extreme to change how he treated women entirely. We never ever got the opportunity to see him face the insecurities and vulnerability of trying to not become his dad who left him and he a better father and a better role model. This would've offered that arc and it's such a shame we didn't get that. I think he was a great portrayal of a lot of REAL men.
I can’t entirely agree with that statement. It seemed more to me like the experience of holding his newborn daughter was so joyous that it shifted his attitude and he couldn’t go back. Maybe it’s not entirely realistic that it would happen just in one moment rather than over time, but for sitcoms it’s usually ok to stretch reality a little for moments like that. It’s not good exactly, but suffice to say there are lots of examples of people struggling to fully empathize until it’s personal for them.
Damn, what a whiplash of an opening. I really like it. Lola Sebastian has an exellent essay on the stagnancy of sitcoms, viewed through the early seasons of The Simpsons and the mundanity of the first COVID-lockdown.
@@emmakredl Thanks for the video! It brought up a few interesting points, and I really enjoyed it. Well, apart from the "yeah, I owned Barney Stinson's Playbook", which made me feel extremely called out. (In a good way.)
PLEASE, you, and EVERYONE, if you haven't already, embrace the One True Only God YHWH Jehovah, Only One Jesus Christ His Only Begotten Son and Lord and Savior of our souls and the Only One Holy Spirit. God is good. God is love. Jesus is Lord. Jesus IS coming. Your soul depends on it! I have seen God act in my life. He saved my soul, changed my heart, changed my mind, helped people through me, took care of people in my life, people I hurt before I found God. God is the only reason I was able to reconcile with my dad before he died. God worked through Jesus Christ to save our souls. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. Be baptized in The Holy Spirit, and if He wills, water as well. Repent of your sins, accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit into your heart, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, that all who believe on Him shall not perish but have eternal life. Jesus Christ is The Way, The Truth and The Life. No one comes to the Father Jehovah God but through Him. Not long after I got saved I prayed to God for help understanding the Holy Bible, and that same day someone knocked on my door asking me if I wanted to understand the Bible. The Holy Bible says, "love thy enemy", "turn the other cheek", "If your enemy is hungry, feed him", "if he is thirsty, give him a drink", "pray for those who persecute you", "do not repay evil for evil". LORD willing, all humans may commit sin of almost every kind (gay, straight), and that's wrong, and all humans sin, as God tells us through the The Holy Bible, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." The Holy Bible also says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
St Patrick's Day was the episode that shows us an alternate future version of the show that is remembered and doesn't suck. The characters mature a little over the later seasons, but that episode gave Ted the lens to see his own actions in the light of day... then he just keeps getting worse for the most part. If he really learned and grew, and meeting the mother was the true trigger for that, this show would still be loved, even the early seasons. Because we would accept the shittyness of the characters as personal failures they will eventually become aware of and grow out of. But the writers were writing themselves in the present... and apparently never matured or looked at their actions in the stark light of day themselves.
I recently rewatched How I met your mother cause it was my comfort series growing up (I’m now 21 years old) and BOY watching it as an adult made me realize how problematic this show is… it was very painful to sit trough THE CONCERNING HIGH AMOUNT of misogynistic and transphobic jokes :/
The like tree trans jokes that exist in the early seasons? None of which actual put any hate on trans people but just show that the characters in the show have a preference and social biases towords them that make sense for the time, Robin's back story is basically a trans allegory in itself. I'll give you the misogyny, but the show trys to balance it out by having plenty of dumb men in the roster, they also don't try to put down women, multiple are actually very successful people and robin and lily are both strong and independent.
@@TiredMoonRabbit THAT'S WHAT GETS ME THEY HAVE MOMENTS WHERE THEY MAKE ALL THESE TRANSPHOBIC JOKES BUT THEY LITERALLY HAVE A WHOLE TRANS ALLEGORY FOR ONE OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS
Why does this show feel like it has zero lasting cultural impact. The only thing I can even remember to reference is Barney's "legen-dary" and I dount that wpuld even register to most people.
I’m saying!!! And the response I got from saying “legend-wait for it-dary” in the process of making this video was mostly people telling me to stop LOL
I constantly think about that bit where Ted and Robin would salute after someone said a sentence with major in it. Always thought it would be a funny reference irl if anyone around me had actually watched it and would’ve gotten it
Such a strange show. I hated Ted Mosby from the outset but still ended up watching 4 seasons anyways. It certainly was a cozy show, one of its time and had a true shining moment in the zeitgeist. Now we're all looking back on it like an ex, questioning what we liked about it in the first place.
I remember liking HIMYM during my lonely 20s, because I was hopelessly in love more times than I could count, and could not make it work with any of my partners. It made me feel a little bit better that there was another person like me, also struggling, even if he was fictional. In my late 30s now, married, I only feel the negative nostalgia of how much that sucked, and how cringy I am at the person I was back then, and how glad I am to be done with that chapter. So for me, it's not a feeling of nostalgic for a simpler time, it's a reminder of how shit my life used to be, and how much happier I am now. You are exactly my favorite kind of youtube channel. I hope you are prolific in the days and years to come.
Same here, I look back at my 20s and I can only feel gratitude for having grown out of so many things, although it is true that for that to happen I did have to go through a lot of shit, maybe my nostalgia goes to how naive i used to be about that!
Re the existential horror of rewatching in your late 20s: I was in my mid 20s and early 30s when the show was airing. I felt the existential horror of it in real time. Never could abide the show, and your video puts into words the claustrophobic feelings I had about it when it was airing.
As someone who is roughly the age the characters were supposed to be and who watched the show as it came out, I`m flabbergasted by people seeing Barney as anything other than a mockery of the pick up artists from back then.
I feel like using anything Barney says against the show is wrong because he is called a sociopath and Satan, we laugh at him, but even the show knows that he is a horrible person who needs to change
And he DOES change over time. Sure he never stops scheming, but in the final season he uses that to try and make Robin happy, and even if their divorce was forced as hell he wanted to be a better man for his new daughter
but they still hang out with him though??? and enable him almost all the time. and Ted is often positioned to be sort of between Marshall mode and Barney mode, and he acts like Barney as easily as he acts like Marshall. so yeah but not really though
@@longlostgf they hang out with him because he serves as a great comic relief and, at least in Lilly's and Ted's part, they think they can help him become a better person (and they're right!). Doesn't mean the show condones his actions
the absolute most charitable thing you can say about it is that this particular brand of fictional predatory behavior is so unrealistic that you can suspend disbelief enough to ignore it, which only even kind of works because it’s so over the top and divorced from real world PUAs. gross, misogynistic, and unfunny at best
My personal take is that notwithstanding what you point the reason we don't like to go back to it is the terrible ending. It used to be a comfort show but now everyone's memories about the show have been tainted with the unnecessarily tragic ending. It's exactly the same with Game of Thrones' poorly written ending and should be used as a cautionary tale for writers - Don't f*ck with the ending if you wanna profit from rewatches.
The show never tried to hide it. The characters (and even the group as a whole) was called out a couple of times and Barney's whole point was that he was a sociopath with a teenage view of what's "awesome". A big inspiration was Seinfeld, which had the same thing. The only aspect where the writers failed, they fell for their own characters and tried to make them sympathetic over time. But it was never subtext that they are horrendous people, it was part of the text (that, admittedly all over the place).
I still love this show. The problems come with the times it was made. As almost every piece of media ever made. The finale is trash. And i think that left such a bad taste, that most people don't return because of it. The characters do some bad stuff, and the show recognize that numerous times. Barney in particular, is constantly called for his behavior.
my boyfriend tried to get me to watch how i met your mother and after watching a few episodes and giving him the regina george face every time someone made a sexist joke i think we traded brain cells.
I think the hardest part of rewatching HIMYM is that the worst of the characters are in the first couple of seasons. Then, unlike most sitcoms, they do work on their own flaws. If the last season/finale didn't flush all of the character development down the toilet, it would be highly regarded because these kinda fucked up young adults learn how to be better adults and better people. It would have the same "not aging well" issue like in Friends, but it would be more palatable since even season 8 versions of these chatacters wouldn't do the same thing as their season 2 counterparts. Instead the show goes "no back to the status quo, the stuff that didn't age well? We stand behind it". I think it isn't as jarring as say, Friends, because Friends never tries to have their characters have huge character development. There's some, but it's very minor. So the audience is aware we're here for the laughs, and some of those laughs aged really badly and were more harmful than we remember. But it isn’t, like you said, a show about nostalgia. We're looking at the past while Friends is living in the present. HIMYM is thinking back fondly on its youth, and resetting the characters back to status quo in its finale is like saying "yes things just needed to go back because it was perfect".
Yes, there actually are good developments like Lily’s and Marshal’s conflicts about their careers, Barney and Robin finding a mode to be together and themselves at the same time (I think it could have worked). Ted‘s realization that he was the bad guy in a lot of his love stories (but it’s quite early and never followed through unfortunately). But the end destroyed that.
So, as a 38 year old woman, I was about the age of the characters on HIMYM when it premiered. Although many of my close friends loved the show, I always hated it. I thought the concepts presented, even at the time were outdated and misogynistic. When I protested against watching the show, I was often told I was "jealous of the hot women". I appreciate you and others in your generation calling out this garbage for what many of us already knew it was. Can you rip apart Two and a Half Men next? Pleeeeeease🙏🙏
I think possibly you missed the point. I see this talking point about it being toxic or gross. Honestly, I do not think that is entirely fair. Barney is meant to be funny, but only because he is obviously NOT awesome. Character growth can happen without physical movement. The setbacks that place them back at the beginning(Maclarens) are often how life actually works. The conceit of the show is that they are currently doing something wrong or are missing something in their lives. That is the setup for each episode's "reason" Oh, why would a comedy talk about 911 years after the fact? I think people get a bit high and mighty when discussing this show. As if you have never done anything wrong or been cringey before.
there's a big difference between doing something wrong or cringey in your personal life and writing a sitcom that billions of people know that obviously did not age well bub, people get "a bit high and mighty" because it's super easy to appear so when you actually pay attention to the show
I came here to say this. I really think you’re taking the show at face value. Anyone who ever saw Barney as a cool character was probably 12 when they watched it. I think that the show simply trusted its audience to be smart enough to laugh at Barney because he was such an over the top character.
@@Dee_Dee216 oh my god: thank you! This video painfully missed that point. While there are definitely times barney took it too far *that was the point* . He took them to their illogical extremes.
This video and other recent ones that criticize HIMYM confuse me because it feels like no one is realizing the main characters being messed up and incredibly flawed is the point. Citing Barney being a horrible person doesn't prove anything because that was literally the point, and saying Ted is being excused as a romantic when older Ted himself is saying he shouldn't have done what he did makes it feel like people didn't really watch the show.
Exactly. I get the overall sentiment that the show didn't age well, but the point of the show is that all the main characters are somewhat insane. I don't understand why one would assume that there always have to be a flawless morality within characters of a comedy show of all things. Everything is such a parody of the things that are portrayed.
@@Law0fRevenge Yeah, it really feels like these people are aware that characters with flaws and issues make stories interesting, but also don't want to actually deal with those flaws being actual flaws causing problems in the story. It's weird to not realize that's how flaws work.
I mean yeah characters like Barney are very clearly meant to be awful but while Ted does have some self reflection his actions are often presented as romantic and right and he often gets rewarded for it. In real life robin should have dropped him out of her life and his undying obsession with her would have destroyed his marriage. But know he gets the mother then after she’s done having the kids he wanted and his suburban life she convienetly dies so dream girl robin who has been waiting for over a decade can step in and Ted can get his “happy ending”. Ted is every nice guy fantasy.
@@faithkidwell9757 I get what you're saying, but if your example is the ending in which every viewer agreed was stupid from day 1 to where the creators even added an alternate ending to better fit what the show was building towards, then I don't know, the rest of the 8.9 seasons of the show still seems pretty great regardless. Especially with how multiple times, it's made clear the show was about Ted becoming a better person for when he did meet Tracy.
Not my favorite show, but I’ve honestly never understood the hatred surrounding the ending. The whole point is that even though he was telling the story of how he ended up meeting his wife and the month we of his children, he returns in the end to arguably the love of his life, Robin. It makes perfect sense with how the entire story is told from the very beginning.
I watched this whole show multiple times when I was a teen and I shudder when I look back at it. It's exactly the type of sexist bullshit I grew up with and my brother is watching it now as an adult, thinking it's funny. That scares me a lot.
yeah, i also watched this show religiously in middle and high school, and it was very formative at the time but never after that, and it is bizarre to look back on. i feel like it’s such an anachronism, a projection of the 20th century into the 21st, both in terms of format (i cannot think of examples of this style of sitcom later than this other than like New Girl or Happy Endings? which are very early 2010s) and in terms of themes, as you laid out here. i think they even reuse the Central Perk set from Friends multiple times, including the coffee shop where Barney works with his gf and becomes who he is. i did not know that it was literally inspire by 9/11 existential crisis, so thank you for leading off with that - it is *extremely* funny to learn that because it makes such perfect sense. it was way out of date when it was still on air in the early 2010s. and yeah… the end was sad and nonsensical if you don’t think the beginning is, but with some years and wisdom, it’s kind of the perfect ending for them, the ending the show and the characters deserved
this is an awesome video!! i just rewatched the show and i agree it’s super depressing!! the fact that marshal struggles the whole show to work to make the earth a better place and he ends up working a horrible corporation for most of his adult life is so depressing. the episode where marshall’s father dies and the episodes around that point actually made me cry. they made me wanna call my dad. and jason segul is easily my favorite actor in the show. but ted’s character is hard to like for most of the show. he doesn’t know what he wants out of life and it hurts all those around him. he spends the entire show pinning after robin only to replace her with the mother who looks A LOT like robin. then ending up with robin. obviously the ending is bad but it’s weird to make ur whole show about a character that is so unlikable.
Ted wasn't unlikable to me. I'd argue he knew he wanted Robin. People told them they wouldn't work. They only thing they ever showed that wouldn't make them work was Lily's thoughts on what they'd be like and Ted's parents. Maybe that would've been the case if Robin could have kids, but the minute it turns out she couldn't have kids, I have no doubt Ted's thoughts on having kids wouldn't have been the same. It's one thing to not have kids when it's an option, it's another thing to not have kids when the one you love can't physically have them. We are shown exactly what Robin and Barney are like if they stay together to long. There was no reason to believe after their first break up they'd change. Also, Ted didn't replace Robin with Tracy. Ted found another true love. Who else found another true love? Tracy. Everyone forgets she had her own Robin. He died. Ted was her Tracy, another true love.
yeah the environmentalism angle is one of those really telling points about the show, because on paper it’s an existential crisis but they are canonically in the show like “legal methods of dealing with this problem don’t do shit” but it’s never a cause for anyone to question anything or change their behavior. basically a hobby or special interest. very Gen X, very of its time
It was a very popular show awhile back. The unique story telling made it special. However, nobody wants to recall it b/c it was a poor man's Friends, Barney is seen as horrible in modern culture, the characters were essencially 1%-er, (if the character in Friends felt well to do, these characters were flat out dripping in money) the characters were all.alcoholics, and it was probably the worst ending in TV history. The last point left a truly sour taste in the mouth of everyone. I really cannot wait it due to all these points.
"Barney is seen as horrible in modern culture" Barney was seen as horrible THEN, that's why they made him an obvious IDIOT who btw has a redemption arc and who's behavior is seen as a fassade that makes him look pretty pathetic when looked underneath etc. I can't f-in' believe how everyone looks back at anything older than 10 years now as if the world was some barbaric wasteland without any sense of morailty back then or something (while, in reality, there's probably much more f-d up sh** going on right now than in a long time...)
Barney was designed from day one as an horrible person. A man who lets his own superficial appearance (be it physical and wanting to "be awesome") and lust drive his life Toning down the comedy, he could have easily been a character in American Psycho. He's never meant to make you go "what a normal and mentally stable person" Friends is always a weird show to me when compared to others because it was...plain. it was safe. It was "Big TV presents: Sitcom about friends rather than a family!" Flawless characters make for boring characters. The same reason why i cant stand Jim and Pam's romance. They're John Doe and Jane Doe falling in love while at odds with Big Evil Dismissive Fiancee #8282. Yawn.
Lovely video! Such a perfect intersection for me: I also was in high-school when HIMYM was big and liked it a lot then, and I also rewatched it recently for some incomprehensible reason, and also hated a lot of it on the rewatch, and also love Mark Fisher’s Ghosts of My Life! I think you really hit the nail on the head with why there’s no nostalgia for a show built around an imagined future nostalgia. Very interesting!
I think I agree with your thesis, but I have some disagreements with how you got there. I believe the fundamental aim of sitcoms is comfort. They do not seek to challenge or critique the culture they find themselves in, but rather unabashedly embrace and embody said culture. Now HIMYM is unique among sitcoms for how much it utilizes nostalgia to accomplish this comfort. So not only does it embrace a highly problematic culture (2000s are super icky with regards to gender and sexuality), but it also harkens back to some fantasized era. To stick with the 9/11 idea, perhaps it is making a call back to hopefulness that the new millenia was supposed to bring before the tragedy. To an alternate timeline where Al Gore wins and there is no Iraq, no TSA at airports, and no 2008 recession. So yes, the show actively avoids the future, late stage captialism, climate change and social attitudes contrary to that of 2000s. It had the opportunity to be a show that rejects this premise, but then it put Robin and Ted back together and reverted Barney to a playboy. It dangled true change for its characters and its world, and then receded to the comfortable nostalgia of 2000.
The show captures what the society was like a decade ago. I enjoyed the show but I can’t watch it again. Also I don’t think it’s a woman friendly show lol.
I remember loving this show when it came out; watching it with family, but personally, I got kinda bored of it after a while. 9 seasons is just too long for telling a story of how you met your kids' mom. And when it finally did end, that was disappointing too lol I tried watching it with some friends a few months ago, and was surprised at how bad a lot of the jokes were. It's like watching Family Guy, or anything Seth McFarland does when you're not a teen anymore.
Neil patrick harris really sold the moment of becoming a dad tho lets be real even tho its hammy af the way he delivers the same dialogue he’d said sarcastically earlier but totally sincere “everything i am is yours” i’m sorry I cry every time
It’s similar to romance books with the guys saying the most ridiculous toxic things, yet it feels romantic in the story (so I heard) But in real life? Trash.
It’s so funny how many frustrated men are here in the comments. It’s so important to be able to consume media and look back at it through a more critical lens. I watched the show in 2016 and loved it. I sobbed when I finished it, even though I hated the ending. I rewatched an episode years later and felt THIS way. The characters and jokes are just awful, and I was baffled that I ever loved the show so much.
I watched HIMYM when I was a teenager and even though I was aware of Friends, it wasn't on one of the channels I had back then and I watched it later on on streaming. When I actually watched Friends I realized how much HIMYM just straight up stole from Friends. Not only are the characters similar, but so many of the plotlines are. But I think one big reason for why Friends to a large extent still holds up today and is still incredibly popular is because it was created by a man and a woman, and it features equally three men and three women, giving the whole show a wider perspective. It's also a light hearted show that still makes people laugh. Joey is a lot kinder than Barney. Ross is similar to Ted, but funnier. Friends is just so much friendlier and HIMYM seems dark in comparison. HIMYM is told from a male perspective and Lily and Robin are really just friends because of their proximity to the same men, not because they have a lot in common as women. My favorite thing about HIMYM is that it's more class critical, with a majority of the show playing out after the 2008 financial crisis. Marshall's struggle to do the right thing but also earn enough money for his family is something I think many of us can relate to. Other than that it's a pretty creepy show, especially because of Ted and Barney.
I appreciate this analysis, but it's still a comfort show for me. Also, I'd just like to suggest that when it comes to the jokes we now understand as problematic, the writing and execution to me always seemed to be making fun of barney for being insanely vapid and misogynistic, not the women themselves or fat people or whoever they were seemingly poking fun at.
I was instantly hooked by the title of this video. I remember watching this show with my family but seeing you explain the show really got me thinking about the shows i liked in the past! Amazing video!
You mentioned that, at the end of the series, every character ended where they began, with no growth, I agree this is true for everyone except Barney, because he not only ended up as a happy father, it was also that his daughter made him understand and grow, shown in the scene where everyone thinks he is going to pick up 2 women just for him to act like a father seeing a teen overexposing herself (this being good or bad compared to an ideal doesn't matter, is growth and is better than what he was at the begining)
I agree! It must be depending on the social circle but a lot of ppl on my tl/algorithm still talk abt this show and it's probably bcos i like this show and surrounded by ppl w the same opinion...While the ending was controversial, it didn't ruin our love for the show as a whole.
My brother and I were obsessed with this show but we have never rewatched it. And my brother and I love rewatching shows, The Office, Boy Meets World, and even a letdown like Lost (we just keep it to the early seasons because the first was so solid and then it just withers away) but we can never make ourselves to rewatch HIMYM it just too disappointing and annoying.
@9:00 Love this pivot! Genuinely a Shyamalan-tier twist (compliment). I had every opportunity to see it coming, I should have seen it coming, and yet when it came it shocked me like a slap in the face. Brava!
i used to be obsessed with the first few seasons of this show, like could recite it line by line, and i remember giving up on it when i watched better sitcoms haha i can’t imagine ever going back to it for so many problematic reasons, but this was a new way of thinking about why it would be strange to go back!
this is great! The finale soured things a ton, but that could be said about so many finales - the framing device through “nostalgia,” knowing narrator ted’s intentions in telling the story, and the problematic aspects really ruined it and it just doesn’t hold up to rewatch. also i forgot the son was that actor from wizards of waverly place/the new reagan movie haha
I never thought of the nostalgia but I have to admit there have been numerous times in which I have randomly come across a HIMYM episode and changed the channel because I knew I would have felt depressed afterwards EDIT: I mean coming across random episodes after watching the whole series
I remember watching this show week to week as it came out. Loving it and quoting it with my brother. My parents felt like it was the new friends, and I remember outlets like magazines and such sort of reverberating that sentiment. So using Friends as the parallel makes perfect sense. I remember trying to rewatch the show a couple years after the finale and couldn't get through the first season, I felt the cringe then. Great video as usual, Looking forward to the next one!!
I definitely agree that HIMYM is cringe and have a lot of flaws, but some of your interpretations were so weird. Both the show and the movie High School Musical carry the lesson about NOT maintaining the status quo and instead being authentic, doing the things you love without shame, and having the courage to do so. I get that maybe you were making a joke with the lyrics of the status quo music but it was also the point in this section, so... I thought that was a weird argument. Like you haven't realized that the show is about trying to do what you love.
I believe the High School Musical lyrics were meant as an ironic joke. Like the lyrics *do* say that, but it's *obviously* a first-act song where the hero believes the wrong thing. With the HIMYM part, I think that the show's stated message of doing "the things you love without shame" actually does serve to promote the status quo when you look at the particular things that the characters want, or "love". Like in the clips in this video, even the character's fantasies of the future take the shape of images of the past.
HIMYM is crazy to me because it used to be my favourite show in my early/mid teenage. Like the show had already wrapped up and I cringe to admit that I rewatched it mutliple times lmao. It was a really strange experience then to sort of be in acknowledgement of how Barney is not great but having rose tintet glasses for the things in it that I resonated with and that were heartwarming for me only to then go back to it pretty recent,y and no longer be blind to all the biggotry in the show. It’s wild because now I’m realizing the internal damage that thing contributed to as a she/her in my teens who didn’t know I was gay and enby yet and actively felt like I had to combat something in me that failed to meet the expedtations of womanhood that I internalized from media like HIMYM….
hey great video! some many things resonated with me and it affirms i feel about himym being just like all the other problematic shows i use to watch.. what’s your friends yt account?
I grew up watching this show as a teenager. I had a buddy that projected himself on to Ted, but admired Barney. Lot of the group admired Barney and his "intellectual" prowess. I did like the show for the gatherings. It was game of thrones type of watching but for suburb kids. I didn't grow up in the suburbs so this kinda of get together felt familiar and comforting. But the Barney thing. I like Niel, alot, and I think his acting is why he got away with the predatory behavior from the character. For me though, the other characters acceptance of the behavior is what I think supports your hypothesis. Comfort, we let the lion sleep next to us because we know it is fed. I am extrapolating a little, so don't mind me. The group would rein in Barney's behavior sometimes when they were close proximity to the group, but not always. Robin and Lilly have both been accosted by Barney in front of their partners respectively. Just alot going on in the show. But yeah the first time I thought about HIMYM in years. Easy sub.
Love watching content outside my comfort zone. I have watched the entire show in like a week or something and the only thing I remember viscerally hating was the ending episode(s?). Yes, the "this is how X friend met the mother" for the last season was ridiculously corny, but hey, it's fiction, it has a right to have fun with reality.
I used to love HIMYM when I watched it first. I'm Brazilian and the show wasnt that big around here so when I Discovered it around 2012 It was amazing. Later, around 2017 me and a group of very close friends entering our 20's really idêntified with The show. But now as a Non-Monogamous adult and social worker, when I tried to rewatch it, it had a sour tarde. Between the sexual predator behavior of Barney and him being an actual serial *apist (in Brazilian law, since here If someone defrauds another tô have sex, its seem as *ape, like he used to) and The total invalidation of other ways to love If not the tradicional ramantic way (every character that wasnt involved in a fulfilling romantic relationship was incomplete and everyone who had more than one partner were actually unhappy and afraid of commitment. So after a few episodes I gave UP. I like that I enjoyed liking it growing up, but lets leave It in the past
As much I loved since I grown up with this show (which I shouldn't do at that age) I agree with your take. Yeah, it is sitcom, but at the same time it can be criticize because everything can/should be criticize (still hate the ending tho)
Those of us who were the age for it when it aired. We knew it was a shitty show at the time. It was an obvious attempt to develop parasocial bonds but the characters were just as unlikeable as The Big Bang theory. There was some young famous producer woman who wrote this show along with two others simultaneously. She was like the god of churning out cheap sitcoms for a dying broadcast TV industry.
Wait... is, no, it can't be. Is Big Bang theory aging better than How I Met Your Mother? What a sad reality? Big Bang even has young Sheldon which by all accounts, is doing a decent job addressing the problems of the original. This is sad 😔
I agree with a lot of your points, but not why people aren't going back to it as much as other big sitcoms. It's because nostalgia culture hasn't reached it yet. People aren't nostalgic for 2010, but one day they probably will be. And hey, I don't particularly like this show, but it's not like it's forgotten. It's still in syndication all over the world and it remains a bankable asset to streaming services. So its probably not as unpopular these days as it might appear, even if it doesn't have that Friends status
I was just saying to myself how 2001 seemed to be "the last new year" I remember truly having. It's hard to pin down why that is - did 9-11 cause this? A permanent feedback loop? Is it late stage capitalism, as millennials onwards don't have the same life accomplishments marking time our elders had? Or does everyone feel that way when they become an adult? I graduated high school soon after 2001. Maybe it's a combination of all three. I'm glad I'm not alone in the observation though! I definitely noticed who did and didn't grow as people based on how fanatical people remained about HIMYM as we got further away from high school. The finale was enragimg for a ton of people because a huge chunk of us grew up over 9 years and then all of a sudden a part of our compass said north was south suddenly 😂
I've had such a blast since finding his channel 💖💖 I caught on early that this show and Big Bang Theory were super problematic, unfortunately. HIMYM came out when I was in high school and I thought it was kinda funny. It was no Scrubs or anything 🤷♀️😅 (doesn't hold up as bad as you'd think especially since a LOT of the comedy is racial. Still some smudges here and the tho). I started seeing all the misogyny and racism and then couldn't believe I had spent 22ish years NOT seeing it. Also unfortunately, these were my grandma's 2 fav sitcoms 💀💀 dont get me started on tosh.0 😅 Hope you're doing great! 💖💖
i’m one of those few who never watched a single episode of this show, and never felt compelled to, even when everyone around me was going crazy about it. maybe bc i was a troubled mentally ill queer teen then, who preferred watching show where i could find relatable characters, and they were not. i also think many of that era’s sitcoms aged poorly, this one, the big bang theory, and many others just worked then but would never air today (luckily). the prob is my country is stuck in the middle ages so this series is still idolatrated from many ppl, even younger than me (i’m 25) and god i HATE it when i have to be the person who points out how problematic these shows were 🗿
I mean, I'd hazard a guess that billions of people alive today have never watched a single episode of HIMYM I don't think there's any episode of any TV show ever that's been seen by more than _maybe_ a billion people from original air date to today, and I wouldn't be too surprised if none have ever even got above 500 million
I feel like it’s rare to find someone who doesn’t like this show. I was always on the fence about it but all of my friends liked it. Years later I can proudly proclaim that it’s always been bad!
Tbh, I don't think that's it. Ppl are just nostalgic for different things right know. We're living in the revival of late 90s/early 2000s - that's why there's so much talk about Friends. Just look at today's fashion. It's just not HIMYM's time + truth be told I think HIMYM is more controversial because one of its main charcters is basically a sexual predator - and it is the character that's supposed to be the fan favourite! Not to mention the universaly hates last season. Look at how no one talks about GOT - because of its disappointing ending.
Honestly looking at the show with this lens just makes one of the worst TV endings make sense on a meta level. It's still an awful ending that throws out everything the show built for seasons on end, but hey they certainly didnt let go of that """nostalgia"""
I don't agree with the point that no one thinks about this show. I feel like there have consistently been video essays and think pieces since it ended. Also, nostalgia is wildly popular now- for better or for worse (thinking the enormous range of tiktok aesthetics). But I think the appeal of the structure is more so about how time and aging work as a young adult. The smoking episode is my favorite use of the narrative structure in the show's run, for what it's worth. This show was certainly problematic in content. Although they painted Barney's behavior as wrong in-show, marketing his character with the Playbook etc was... a choice. And I think the show attempted to be inclusive in ways Friends failed, but still managed to fall through the cracks in terms of being very anti asian and fatphobic. Good luck with your channel - good research and editing! Im following :)
I think that's mostly a network marketing thing than an actual issue if the show itself, plus the play book is built to be outlandish, nothing written in it would actually work and you'd have to be a next class idiot actual attempt any of them, as for Bing anti Asian and fatphobic I just have to disagree, I don't think the show has any hatred for any select group of people, nor do the characters in it, but those characters (being purposefully made flawed) do have biases which leads to them saying bad thing's.
In an internet filled with videos by people who ignore the portion of the audience that loved the ending, people who can't grasp that that their views are the only views, videos by people who think they know the show better than the creators of the show, you have produced easily the cringiest "the show sucks because it didn't predict who *I* would be video" I have ever seen.
@@bengallup9321 That's why I shut it off after a certain point. And yes, they're entitled to their opinion, and I'm entitled to mine, and if they don't want to see comments differing from theirs they can always shut off comments on the video.
@@KennAKALeointernet is full of people showing in their comments showing they missed the point and projekt their ownd flawed half baked way of thinking on others cause they dare dislike something they like. Cringe, there is no other words for it, it's emberasing.
I always thought that show was bad..I remember at the time it survived its first season because all the prominent shows were on hold for the writer’s strike.
A phenomenal show in all the wrong ways! Never have I seen a series without a SINGLE likable character (oh - Scrubs comes a close second to this!). I never rooted for ANYONE in both said series because the characters were such narcissistic and manipulative jerks. And imagine, a series like Two and a Half Men had several really likable characters and treated LGBTQ issues quite respectfully. One of my favorite episodes has Chris O'Donnel play a former gilrfriend of Charlie's who had transitioned. The character was treated very well and the comedy was not cheap or transphobic in the least. Great segment. Subscribed, liked and commented!
@@miguelpadeiro762 Both shows are! I lost interest with "It's always sunny..." quite qeickly and sort of hate watched HIMYM. The finale was hideous. It was like watching a slow motion train wreck grind to a halt. The only thing I liked was that a gay man played despicable Barney, the ultimate bro. What irony!
The Future is cancelled: Compare 1964 to 1984 and 2004, see the massive changes that happened. And now look at 2004 to 2024, only thing that changed is the size of our phone and the speed of the internet. We went from optimistic progress to cynical stagnation.
This show was equally as vapid, shallow, and unfunny as 'the big bang theory'. Try watching either with the laugh track turned off, both are like the death of comedy, while reinforcing a shit-ton of deeply flawed, problematic stereotypes. The only TV comedy from this era that holds up is 'its always sunny in Philadelphia' which was unafraid to embrace and celebrate it's deeply flawed, amoral characters, as opposed to seeming to wallow in nothing more than baby-brained sentimental nostalgia for it's own sake.
Yup. The world view of two young white urban male writers. Both immature and one physically unappealing. Never found the show particularly appealing. At least the more acceptable misandry and man bashing in current entertainment more than makes up for all that misogyny huh.
@@Iron-Bridge is there? I don't think so. Just mockery of women who don't get along with men. Or weird revenge fantasies that have nothing to do with what women really fantasize about, but are what men fear women will do when we finally lose our patience with them 😂
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PLEASE, you, and EVERYONE, if you haven't already, embrace the One True Only God YHWH Jehovah, Only One Jesus Christ His Only Begotten Son and Lord and Savior of our souls and the Only One Holy Spirit. God is good. God is love. Jesus is Lord. Jesus IS coming. Your soul depends on it!
I have seen God act in my life. He saved my soul, changed my heart, changed my mind, helped people through me, took care of people in my life, people I hurt before I found God. God is the only reason I was able to reconcile with my dad before he died.
God worked through Jesus Christ to save our souls. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. Be baptized in The Holy Spirit, and if He wills, water as well. Repent of your sins, accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit into your heart, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, that all who believe on Him shall not perish but have eternal life. Jesus Christ is The Way, The Truth and The Life. No one comes to the Father Jehovah God but through Him.
Not long after I got saved I prayed to God for help understanding the Holy Bible, and that same day someone knocked on my door asking me if I wanted to understand the Bible.
The Holy Bible says, "love thy enemy", "turn the other cheek", "If your enemy is hungry, feed him", "if he is thirsty, give him a drink", "pray for those who persecute you", "do not repay evil for evil".
LORD willing, all humans may commit sin of almost every kind (gay, straight), and that's wrong, and all humans sin, as God tells us through the The Holy Bible, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." The Holy Bible also says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
Will do Intelectual videos are really blowing up and I enjoy similar point of views to mine coming from other people. Blessings.
Was quite an informative and engaging video, would love to see more of your content and how you may grow more of an audience
really difficult to listen to your takes on whats cool or not while youre wearing this sweater and have this hair cut
@@jonstewartsuperfan2988 this has to be a woman commenting this
I think Ted’s wife should’ve been in a whole season. It would’ve been more emotional when she died. Introducing her and killing her off in 5 minutes felt really underwhelming
She is in the whole season, she's just not interacting with the entire group till the last episode. We LITERALLY see her in the Season 6 finale
Thinking about how sitcom characters always go back to a place of comfort and have a home base they share with their friends definitely makes me think about the expectations vs reality of adulthood and the loneliness that can come with it
I remember a scene in this show where the guys are with some ladies and trying to get into a nightclub. They ask the bouncer if they can get in, and the bouncer says "not with the ladies, we have too many ladies in there right now". The guys ask the bouncer if the ladies in the club are hotter. The bouncer says "I don't know about hotter, but they're definitely drunker". The punchline is that they choose to go in and prey on the drunker women. Pretty dark.
himym has many offensive jokes, but that one actually isn't it, because at the end of the episode they realize they were themselves the assholes and feel ashamed of their behavior. well, at least ted does. like, we're not supposed to root for them and the show (and the characters) explicitly say so
@@eduardoo31thank you for common sense and contextualising these jokes and scenes! This is always missing from the discourse. Why even make a commentary on it if you don't conceptually discuss it?
ummm that's the setup for half of barney's jokes lol not saying its okay, just this moment isnt that dark compared to a lot of the other stuff thats said
I agree with OP here. Saying it's okay because Ted 'learned his lesson' is kind of like saying a crime is forgiven because somebody confesses their sins in church.
The thing is, Ted is always learning his lesson. He watches Barney be a complete predator and he just shakes his head and looks away. At the most he might make a comment signalling he doesn't condone the behaviour. But he doesn't call Barney out; he doesn't end the friendship (not until Barney does something that impacts him directly). He ignores it, enables it and joins in surprisingly often.
And when Ted acts up, the blame is often put on Barney for being a bad influence. Suggesting that good men are like this under the surface. They just need a little push to bring it out. And they need to constantly self regulate to be a good person.
Ted is our barometer for 'good guy', placed in contrast to Barney. He is put up on this pedestal by the show and other characters to be the ethical one, yes flawed (by being 'too good' with his romanticism and idealism) but the clear choice for a romantic partner and friend. When he goes too far in disregarding women's boundaries or autonomy it is excused because his 'intentions are good'.
And yes he learned his lesson in this instance that was so brazen... but what about the times he goes along with Barney and lies to women for the chance to sleep with them? It's okay because he's not the initiator, because he isn't desperate for sex the way Barney is (could take it or leave it), because despite what he DOES he still SAYS that he is a good guy who respects women and wants commitment.
Characters need to learn lessons for episodes to have structure but Ted doesn't really have any convictions that can't be influenced. He's all talk and smokescreens.
The context of that scene was that this was the day Ted acted like a jerk, how the worse people would act, so, that was the point
I never felt like rewatching it because it was all leading to one thing - finding out how he met their mother. But the ending was really bad and made everything that happened before that feel pointless. Like, he started with Robin & ended with Robin. The mother was just incidental.
I’d argue it’s the entire point, it was about Robin the entire time. It’s actually the one thing I enjoy about an otherwise forgettable show.
The mother wasn't incidental, Tracy marks a very important part of Ted's life, when he decided to stop remembering and focusing on every detail and instead just live and love her, that why the final season takes place over 2 days and the last two episodes take place over a decade and a half, after meeting Tracy ted was happy, and then she died and he did the one thing he hoped he wouldn't, get stuck in his stories, the just realized that he still had love for robin while listening and that the timing was finally right, so to help their dad they give him a push and he takes it. Also to quote Theodore evelyn mosby himself "because sometimes even if you know how somethings going to end, that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the ride" maybe that will help.
It is spelled in the final by the kids, but the writers should have changed the ending when they saw the interactions, maybe just him telling the kids the story was about how one can live many stories to then share those with the people they love, they have the scene where Tracy thinks she doesn't knew one of his stories but then she realizes she does, how they ended up sharing their whole life, he share everything with their mother, and now he was sharing everything their mother knew with them or something like that, it wouldn't have been perfect, but it would have been better than to stick to a nearly no one really developed as a person finale
@@alenasenie6928 that just isn't true, all the characters were well developed in the final.
how i met your stepmother
The Barney situation feels really similar to the whole issue with Carman from South Park. The writers want us to see him as a bad person but merchandized the hell out of both charecters making it hard to see them as unlikable. It's really weird looking back at all that.
Yeah Barney really created a gang of misogynistic boy fans obsessed with the show and it’s “”””values”””” … I swear as long as himym was huge my dating life has been horrible, and guys who treated girls poorly just casually referenced the show as motivation to their actions. I hated it
I know it wasn’t the only piece of media spreading these ideas but it was the only one that I heard being used as justification. (I’m Italian and I don’t know if this is a global thing, just my two personal cents)
9/11 started My Chemical Romance, but it also gave us How I Met Your Mother…
yin and yang
9/11 started my chemical romance, twilight was originally a fanfic of mcr but was later changed to twilight, 50 shades of gray was originally a twilight fanfic but was later changed, thus 9/11 caused 50 shades. and how i met your mother is somewhere in there too
An all around tragedy.
@@ArrowBioshock711and don't forget the Robert Pattinson connection with Twilight and Remember Me, which ends with what? 9/11. 🤯
@@zenleeparadise well shit man i didnt even know that lmaooo
It really sucked that with Barney they actually went the route of "Serial womanizer can only respect the woman that is OF him, his own daughter who he cannot be sexually attracted to". Lame...
Or. Person that only knows Lust but realised what truth love is by being a parent. Eros to agape. Like saint augustine.
The sitcom bible says: Thou shall not have flawed characters or downright bad people in thy cast.
Cmon... Barney is a shit guy, that's the joke. You really shouldn't take a look at Seinfeld, or it's extreme version, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, that features sociopaths
@@miguelpadeiro762 The problem is not that Barney is a shitty person. The problem's that he's never really allowed to grow as a person, and is often allowed to escpare from the consequenses of his own actions. So it really ends up feeling as if he gets off scot free, regardless of what he does. Other shows can get away with their main characters being being shitty because said characters either face consequences or get some development. HIMYM does neither.
I actually firmly disagree. I think he would never change and that's reality. It would be too extreme to change how he treated women entirely.
We never ever got the opportunity to see him face the insecurities and vulnerability of trying to not become his dad who left him and he a better father and a better role model. This would've offered that arc and it's such a shame we didn't get that.
I think he was a great portrayal of a lot of REAL men.
I can’t entirely agree with that statement. It seemed more to me like the experience of holding his newborn daughter was so joyous that it shifted his attitude and he couldn’t go back. Maybe it’s not entirely realistic that it would happen just in one moment rather than over time, but for sitcoms it’s usually ok to stretch reality a little for moments like that. It’s not good exactly, but suffice to say there are lots of examples of people struggling to fully empathize until it’s personal for them.
Damn, what a whiplash of an opening. I really like it.
Lola Sebastian has an exellent essay on the stagnancy of sitcoms, viewed through the early seasons of The Simpsons and the mundanity of the first COVID-lockdown.
Ooh thanks for the recommendation I’ll check it out!!
@@emmakredl Thanks for the video! It brought up a few interesting points, and I really enjoyed it. Well, apart from the "yeah, I owned Barney Stinson's Playbook", which made me feel extremely called out. (In a good way.)
PLEASE, you, and EVERYONE, if you haven't already, embrace the One True Only God YHWH Jehovah, Only One Jesus Christ His Only Begotten Son and Lord and Savior of our souls and the Only One Holy Spirit. God is good. God is love. Jesus is Lord. Jesus IS coming. Your soul depends on it!
I have seen God act in my life. He saved my soul, changed my heart, changed my mind, helped people through me, took care of people in my life, people I hurt before I found God. God is the only reason I was able to reconcile with my dad before he died.
God worked through Jesus Christ to save our souls. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. Be baptized in The Holy Spirit, and if He wills, water as well. Repent of your sins, accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit into your heart, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, that all who believe on Him shall not perish but have eternal life. Jesus Christ is The Way, The Truth and The Life. No one comes to the Father Jehovah God but through Him.
Not long after I got saved I prayed to God for help understanding the Holy Bible, and that same day someone knocked on my door asking me if I wanted to understand the Bible.
The Holy Bible says, "love thy enemy", "turn the other cheek", "If your enemy is hungry, feed him", "if he is thirsty, give him a drink", "pray for those who persecute you", "do not repay evil for evil".
LORD willing, all humans may commit sin of almost every kind (gay, straight), and that's wrong, and all humans sin, as God tells us through the The Holy Bible, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." The Holy Bible also says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
St Patrick's Day was the episode that shows us an alternate future version of the show that is remembered and doesn't suck. The characters mature a little over the later seasons, but that episode gave Ted the lens to see his own actions in the light of day... then he just keeps getting worse for the most part. If he really learned and grew, and meeting the mother was the true trigger for that, this show would still be loved, even the early seasons. Because we would accept the shittyness of the characters as personal failures they will eventually become aware of and grow out of. But the writers were writing themselves in the present... and apparently never matured or looked at their actions in the stark light of day themselves.
Self reflection wasnt so popular in the early 2000’s
I recently rewatched How I met your mother cause it was my comfort series growing up (I’m now 21 years old) and BOY watching it as an adult made me realize how problematic this show is… it was very painful to sit trough THE CONCERNING HIGH AMOUNT of misogynistic and transphobic jokes :/
The like tree trans jokes that exist in the early seasons? None of which actual put any hate on trans people but just show that the characters in the show have a preference and social biases towords them that make sense for the time, Robin's back story is basically a trans allegory in itself.
I'll give you the misogyny, but the show trys to balance it out by having plenty of dumb men in the roster, they also don't try to put down women, multiple are actually very successful people and robin and lily are both strong and independent.
@@TiredMoonRabbit THAT'S WHAT GETS ME THEY HAVE MOMENTS WHERE THEY MAKE ALL THESE TRANSPHOBIC JOKES BUT THEY LITERALLY HAVE A WHOLE TRANS ALLEGORY FOR ONE OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS
Same
Why does this show feel like it has zero lasting cultural impact. The only thing I can even remember to reference is Barney's "legen-dary" and I dount that wpuld even register to most people.
I’m saying!!! And the response I got from saying “legend-wait for it-dary” in the process of making this video was mostly people telling me to stop LOL
Lmao true and it ran for like 10 years on major networks!!! 😂
I feel like people still reference "the bro code", but don't know the specific term came from Barney Stinson.
I constantly think about that bit where Ted and Robin would salute after someone said a sentence with major in it. Always thought it would be a funny reference irl if anyone around me had actually watched it and would’ve gotten it
The creators of HIMYM aren’t nearly as charming and clever as they think they are and it’s extremely exhausting
Indeed! One of them once said he hated comedies without laugh tracks, because how does the audience know where to laugh? My God, man.
@@JP-ve7or Ooof 😬
Such a strange show. I hated Ted Mosby from the outset but still ended up watching 4 seasons anyways. It certainly was a cozy show, one of its time and had a true shining moment in the zeitgeist. Now we're all looking back on it like an ex, questioning what we liked about it in the first place.
I tried to revisit the show when Netflix got it again recently. I couldn't get past two episodes. Ted was a total stalker and I just couldn't go on.
I remember liking HIMYM during my lonely 20s, because I was hopelessly in love more times than I could count, and could not make it work with any of my partners. It made me feel a little bit better that there was another person like me, also struggling, even if he was fictional. In my late 30s now, married, I only feel the negative nostalgia of how much that sucked, and how cringy I am at the person I was back then, and how glad I am to be done with that chapter. So for me, it's not a feeling of nostalgic for a simpler time, it's a reminder of how shit my life used to be, and how much happier I am now.
You are exactly my favorite kind of youtube channel. I hope you are prolific in the days and years to come.
Same here, I look back at my 20s and I can only feel gratitude for having grown out of so many things, although it is true that for that to happen I did have to go through a lot of shit, maybe my nostalgia goes to how naive i used to be about that!
Re the existential horror of rewatching in your late 20s: I was in my mid 20s and early 30s when the show was airing. I felt the existential horror of it in real time. Never could abide the show, and your video puts into words the claustrophobic feelings I had about it when it was airing.
As someone who is roughly the age the characters were supposed to be and who watched the show as it came out, I`m flabbergasted by people seeing Barney as anything other than a mockery of the pick up artists from back then.
0:11 BEST COLD OPENER EVER
Tbh the intro was just. Itself legendary
Now the real challenge would be to introduce each subsequent video with that
I feel like using anything Barney says against the show is wrong because he is called a sociopath and Satan, we laugh at him, but even the show knows that he is a horrible person who needs to change
And he DOES change over time. Sure he never stops scheming, but in the final season he uses that to try and make Robin happy, and even if their divorce was forced as hell he wanted to be a better man for his new daughter
but they still hang out with him though??? and enable him almost all the time. and Ted is often positioned to be sort of between Marshall mode and Barney mode, and he acts like Barney as easily as he acts like Marshall. so yeah but not really though
@@longlostgf they hang out with him because he serves as a great comic relief and, at least in Lilly's and Ted's part, they think they can help him become a better person (and they're right!).
Doesn't mean the show condones his actions
the absolute most charitable thing you can say about it is that this particular brand of fictional predatory behavior is so unrealistic that you can suspend disbelief enough to ignore it, which only even kind of works because it’s so over the top and divorced from real world PUAs. gross, misogynistic, and unfunny at best
@@longlostgf oh my god the comedy show has unrealistic things happen and humour is subjective? Wow. Shocking
My personal take is that notwithstanding what you point the reason we don't like to go back to it is the terrible ending. It used to be a comfort show but now everyone's memories about the show have been tainted with the unnecessarily tragic ending. It's exactly the same with Game of Thrones' poorly written ending and should be used as a cautionary tale for writers - Don't f*ck with the ending if you wanna profit from rewatches.
I was literally thinking the other day about how nostalgia has never brought this show back. And now I see why
The show never tried to hide it. The characters (and even the group as a whole) was called out a couple of times and Barney's whole point was that he was a sociopath with a teenage view of what's "awesome".
A big inspiration was Seinfeld, which had the same thing. The only aspect where the writers failed, they fell for their own characters and tried to make them sympathetic over time.
But it was never subtext that they are horrendous people, it was part of the text (that, admittedly all over the place).
I still love this show. The problems come with the times it was made. As almost every piece of media ever made.
The finale is trash. And i think that left such a bad taste, that most people don't return because of it.
The characters do some bad stuff, and the show recognize that numerous times. Barney in particular, is constantly called for his behavior.
himym is way more sexist and transphobic than other shows from earlier. i do like the show despite that.
my boyfriend tried to get me to watch how i met your mother and after watching a few episodes and giving him the regina george face every time someone made a sexist joke i think we traded brain cells.
I think the hardest part of rewatching HIMYM is that the worst of the characters are in the first couple of seasons. Then, unlike most sitcoms, they do work on their own flaws. If the last season/finale didn't flush all of the character development down the toilet, it would be highly regarded because these kinda fucked up young adults learn how to be better adults and better people. It would have the same "not aging well" issue like in Friends, but it would be more palatable since even season 8 versions of these chatacters wouldn't do the same thing as their season 2 counterparts. Instead the show goes "no back to the status quo, the stuff that didn't age well? We stand behind it".
I think it isn't as jarring as say, Friends, because Friends never tries to have their characters have huge character development. There's some, but it's very minor. So the audience is aware we're here for the laughs, and some of those laughs aged really badly and were more harmful than we remember. But it isn’t, like you said, a show about nostalgia. We're looking at the past while Friends is living in the present. HIMYM is thinking back fondly on its youth, and resetting the characters back to status quo in its finale is like saying "yes things just needed to go back because it was perfect".
Yes, there actually are good developments like Lily’s and Marshal’s conflicts about their careers, Barney and Robin finding a mode to be together and themselves at the same time (I think it could have worked). Ted‘s realization that he was the bad guy in a lot of his love stories (but it’s quite early and never followed through unfortunately). But the end destroyed that.
So, as a 38 year old woman, I was about the age of the characters on HIMYM when it premiered. Although many of my close friends loved the show, I always hated it. I thought the concepts presented, even at the time were outdated and misogynistic. When I protested against watching the show, I was often told I was "jealous of the hot women". I appreciate you and others in your generation calling out this garbage for what many of us already knew it was.
Can you rip apart Two and a Half Men next? Pleeeeeease🙏🙏
I think possibly you missed the point. I see this talking point about it being toxic or gross. Honestly, I do not think that is entirely fair. Barney is meant to be funny, but only because he is obviously NOT awesome. Character growth can happen without physical movement. The setbacks that place them back at the beginning(Maclarens) are often how life actually works. The conceit of the show is that they are currently doing something wrong or are missing something in their lives. That is the setup for each episode's "reason"
Oh, why would a comedy talk about 911 years after the fact?
I think people get a bit high and mighty when discussing this show. As if you have never done anything wrong or been cringey before.
there's a big difference between doing something wrong or cringey in your personal life and writing a sitcom that billions of people know that obviously did not age well bub, people get "a bit high and mighty" because it's super easy to appear so when you actually pay attention to the show
I came here to say this. I really think you’re taking the show at face value. Anyone who ever saw Barney as a cool character was probably 12 when they watched it. I think that the show simply trusted its audience to be smart enough to laugh at Barney because he was such an over the top character.
I think it was made very clear in the show that Barney was thought of as a loser by every one within his orbit.
@@Dee_Dee216 oh my god: thank you!
This video painfully missed that point.
While there are definitely times barney took it too far *that was the point* . He took them to their illogical extremes.
@@Turtle_Pain true. Just because you portray something doesn't mean you approve of it
This video and other recent ones that criticize HIMYM confuse me because it feels like no one is realizing the main characters being messed up and incredibly flawed is the point. Citing Barney being a horrible person doesn't prove anything because that was literally the point, and saying Ted is being excused as a romantic when older Ted himself is saying he shouldn't have done what he did makes it feel like people didn't really watch the show.
Exactly. I get the overall sentiment that the show didn't age well, but the point of the show is that all the main characters are somewhat insane. I don't understand why one would assume that there always have to be a flawless morality within characters of a comedy show of all things. Everything is such a parody of the things that are portrayed.
@@Law0fRevenge Yeah, it really feels like these people are aware that characters with flaws and issues make stories interesting, but also don't want to actually deal with those flaws being actual flaws causing problems in the story. It's weird to not realize that's how flaws work.
I mean yeah characters like Barney are very clearly meant to be awful but while Ted does have some self reflection his actions are often presented as romantic and right and he often gets rewarded for it. In real life robin should have dropped him out of her life and his undying obsession with her would have destroyed his marriage. But know he gets the mother then after she’s done having the kids he wanted and his suburban life she convienetly dies so dream girl robin who has been waiting for over a decade can step in and Ted can get his “happy ending”. Ted is every nice guy fantasy.
@@faithkidwell9757 I get what you're saying, but if your example is the ending in which every viewer agreed was stupid from day 1 to where the creators even added an alternate ending to better fit what the show was building towards, then I don't know, the rest of the 8.9 seasons of the show still seems pretty great regardless. Especially with how multiple times, it's made clear the show was about Ted becoming a better person for when he did meet Tracy.
Even if that's the point (supposedly), there's disonance between the intention and the presentation
Not my favorite show, but I’ve honestly never understood the hatred surrounding the ending. The whole point is that even though he was telling the story of how he ended up meeting his wife and the month we of his children, he returns in the end to arguably the love of his life, Robin. It makes perfect sense with how the entire story is told from the very beginning.
I watched this whole show multiple times when I was a teen and I shudder when I look back at it. It's exactly the type of sexist bullshit I grew up with and my brother is watching it now as an adult, thinking it's funny.
That scares me a lot.
A bad ending is able to wipe years of good publicity. Look at what happened to Game of Thrones
yeah, i also watched this show religiously in middle and high school, and it was very formative at the time but never after that, and it is bizarre to look back on. i feel like it’s such an anachronism, a projection of the 20th century into the 21st, both in terms of format (i cannot think of examples of this style of sitcom later than this other than like New Girl or Happy Endings? which are very early 2010s) and in terms of themes, as you laid out here. i think they even reuse the Central Perk set from Friends multiple times, including the coffee shop where Barney works with his gf and becomes who he is. i did not know that it was literally inspire by 9/11 existential crisis, so thank you for leading off with that - it is *extremely* funny to learn that because it makes such perfect sense. it was way out of date when it was still on air in the early 2010s.
and yeah… the end was sad and nonsensical if you don’t think the beginning is, but with some years and wisdom, it’s kind of the perfect ending for them, the ending the show and the characters deserved
this is an awesome video!! i just rewatched the show and i agree it’s super depressing!! the fact that marshal struggles the whole show to work to make the earth a better place and he ends up working a horrible corporation for most of his adult life is so depressing. the episode where marshall’s father dies and the episodes around that point actually made me cry. they made me wanna call my dad. and jason segul is easily my favorite actor in the show. but ted’s character is hard to like for most of the show. he doesn’t know what he wants out of life and it hurts all those around him. he spends the entire show pinning after robin only to replace her with the mother who looks A LOT like robin. then ending up with robin. obviously the ending is bad but it’s weird to make ur whole show about a character that is so unlikable.
I think Tracy looks like Lily, really.
Tracy looks nothing like robN to me
Ted wasn't unlikable to me. I'd argue he knew he wanted Robin. People told them they wouldn't work. They only thing they ever showed that wouldn't make them work was Lily's thoughts on what they'd be like and Ted's parents.
Maybe that would've been the case if Robin could have kids, but the minute it turns out she couldn't have kids, I have no doubt Ted's thoughts on having kids wouldn't have been the same. It's one thing to not have kids when it's an option, it's another thing to not have kids when the one you love can't physically have them.
We are shown exactly what Robin and Barney are like if they stay together to long. There was no reason to believe after their first break up they'd change.
Also, Ted didn't replace Robin with Tracy. Ted found another true love. Who else found another true love? Tracy. Everyone forgets she had her own Robin. He died. Ted was her Tracy, another true love.
yeah the environmentalism angle is one of those really telling points about the show, because on paper it’s an existential crisis but they are canonically in the show like “legal methods of dealing with this problem don’t do shit” but it’s never a cause for anyone to question anything or change their behavior. basically a hobby or special interest. very Gen X, very of its time
@@longlostgf what change of behaviour of this set of characters would have solved the existencial crisis?
It was a very popular show awhile back. The unique story telling made it special. However, nobody wants to recall it b/c it was a poor man's Friends, Barney is seen as horrible in modern culture, the characters were essencially 1%-er, (if the character in Friends felt well to do, these characters were flat out dripping in money) the characters were all.alcoholics, and it was probably the worst ending in TV history. The last point left a truly sour taste in the mouth of everyone. I really cannot wait it due to all these points.
"Barney is seen as horrible in modern culture" Barney was seen as horrible THEN, that's why they made him an obvious IDIOT who btw has a redemption arc and who's behavior is seen as a fassade that makes him look pretty pathetic when looked underneath etc. I can't f-in' believe how everyone looks back at anything older than 10 years now as if the world was some barbaric wasteland without any sense of morailty back then or something (while, in reality, there's probably much more f-d up sh** going on right now than in a long time...)
Barney was designed from day one as an horrible person. A man who lets his own superficial appearance (be it physical and wanting to "be awesome") and lust drive his life
Toning down the comedy, he could have easily been a character in American Psycho. He's never meant to make you go "what a normal and mentally stable person"
Friends is always a weird show to me when compared to others because it was...plain. it was safe. It was "Big TV presents: Sitcom about friends rather than a family!"
Flawless characters make for boring characters. The same reason why i cant stand Jim and Pam's romance. They're John Doe and Jane Doe falling in love while at odds with Big Evil Dismissive Fiancee #8282. Yawn.
Barney was seen as a monster back then, there’s a reason why he’s the only one of the 5 who gets significant development .
@@janhommerthat's fine, it's just good old-fashioned generational conflict.
Lovely video! Such a perfect intersection for me: I also was in high-school when HIMYM was big and liked it a lot then, and I also rewatched it recently for some incomprehensible reason, and also hated a lot of it on the rewatch, and also love Mark Fisher’s Ghosts of My Life! I think you really hit the nail on the head with why there’s no nostalgia for a show built around an imagined future nostalgia. Very interesting!
omg my target audience :') So glad you made it here!!
I think I agree with your thesis, but I have some disagreements with how you got there.
I believe the fundamental aim of sitcoms is comfort. They do not seek to challenge or critique the culture they find themselves in, but rather unabashedly embrace and embody said culture. Now HIMYM is unique among sitcoms for how much it utilizes nostalgia to accomplish this comfort. So not only does it embrace a highly problematic culture (2000s are super icky with regards to gender and sexuality), but it also harkens back to some fantasized era. To stick with the 9/11 idea, perhaps it is making a call back to hopefulness that the new millenia was supposed to bring before the tragedy. To an alternate timeline where Al Gore wins and there is no Iraq, no TSA at airports, and no 2008 recession.
So yes, the show actively avoids the future, late stage captialism, climate change and social attitudes contrary to that of 2000s. It had the opportunity to be a show that rejects this premise, but then it put Robin and Ted back together and reverted Barney to a playboy. It dangled true change for its characters and its world, and then receded to the comfortable nostalgia of 2000.
The show captures what the society was like a decade ago. I enjoyed the show but I can’t watch it again. Also I don’t think it’s a woman friendly show lol.
I remember loving this show when it came out; watching it with family, but personally, I got kinda bored of it after a while.
9 seasons is just too long for telling a story of how you met your kids' mom.
And when it finally did end, that was disappointing too lol
I tried watching it with some friends a few months ago, and was surprised at how bad a lot of the jokes were.
It's like watching Family Guy, or anything Seth McFarland does when you're not a teen anymore.
Neil patrick harris really sold the moment of becoming a dad tho lets be real even tho its hammy af the way he delivers the same dialogue he’d said sarcastically earlier but totally sincere “everything i am is yours” i’m sorry I cry every time
It’s similar to romance books with the guys saying the most ridiculous toxic things, yet it feels romantic in the story (so I heard) But in real life? Trash.
@@202cardlineDoubler Dahmer dude.
It’s so funny how many frustrated men are here in the comments. It’s so important to be able to consume media and look back at it through a more critical lens.
I watched the show in 2016 and loved it. I sobbed when I finished it, even though I hated the ending. I rewatched an episode years later and felt THIS way. The characters and jokes are just awful, and I was baffled that I ever loved the show so much.
I watched HIMYM when I was a teenager and even though I was aware of Friends, it wasn't on one of the channels I had back then and I watched it later on on streaming.
When I actually watched Friends I realized how much HIMYM just straight up stole from Friends. Not only are the characters similar, but so many of the plotlines are.
But I think one big reason for why Friends to a large extent still holds up today and is still incredibly popular is because it was created by a man and a woman, and it features equally three men and three women, giving the whole show a wider perspective. It's also a light hearted show that still makes people laugh. Joey is a lot kinder than Barney. Ross is similar to Ted, but funnier. Friends is just so much friendlier and HIMYM seems dark in comparison.
HIMYM is told from a male perspective and Lily and Robin are really just friends because of their proximity to the same men, not because they have a lot in common as women.
My favorite thing about HIMYM is that it's more class critical, with a majority of the show playing out after the 2008 financial crisis. Marshall's struggle to do the right thing but also earn enough money for his family is something I think many of us can relate to.
Other than that it's a pretty creepy show, especially because of Ted and Barney.
I appreciate this analysis, but it's still a comfort show for me. Also, I'd just like to suggest that when it comes to the jokes we now understand as problematic, the writing and execution to me always seemed to be making fun of barney for being insanely vapid and misogynistic, not the women themselves or fat people or whoever they were seemingly poking fun at.
I was instantly hooked by the title of this video. I remember watching this show with my family but seeing you explain the show really got me thinking about the shows i liked in the past! Amazing video!
You mentioned that, at the end of the series, every character ended where they began, with no growth, I agree this is true for everyone except Barney, because he not only ended up as a happy father, it was also that his daughter made him understand and grow, shown in the scene where everyone thinks he is going to pick up 2 women just for him to act like a father seeing a teen overexposing herself (this being good or bad compared to an ideal doesn't matter, is growth and is better than what he was at the begining)
Owned the Playbook? Past tense? No, it's still on a shelf somewhere.
Saaame
Wierd way to say that you don't like the show anymore.
And a lot of my friends remember that show still
I agree! It must be depending on the social circle but a lot of ppl on my tl/algorithm still talk abt this show and it's probably bcos i like this show and surrounded by ppl w the same opinion...While the ending was controversial, it didn't ruin our love for the show as a whole.
My brother and I were obsessed with this show but we have never rewatched it. And my brother and I love rewatching shows, The Office, Boy Meets World, and even a letdown like Lost (we just keep it to the early seasons because the first was so solid and then it just withers away) but we can never make ourselves to rewatch HIMYM it just too disappointing and annoying.
@9:00 Love this pivot! Genuinely a Shyamalan-tier twist (compliment). I had every opportunity to see it coming, I should have seen it coming, and yet when it came it shocked me like a slap in the face. Brava!
i used to be obsessed with the first few seasons of this show, like could recite it line by line, and i remember giving up on it when i watched better sitcoms haha i can’t imagine ever going back to it for so many problematic reasons, but this was a new way of thinking about why it would be strange to go back!
this is great! The finale soured things a ton, but that could be said about so many finales - the framing device through “nostalgia,” knowing narrator ted’s intentions in telling the story, and the problematic aspects really ruined it and it just doesn’t hold up to rewatch. also i forgot the son was that actor from wizards of waverly place/the new reagan movie haha
I never thought of the nostalgia but I have to admit there have been numerous times in which I have randomly come across a HIMYM episode and changed the channel because I knew I would have felt depressed afterwards
EDIT: I mean coming across random episodes after watching the whole series
I remember watching this show week to week as it came out. Loving it and quoting it with my brother. My parents felt like it was the new friends, and I remember outlets like magazines and such sort of reverberating that sentiment. So using Friends as the parallel makes perfect sense. I remember trying to rewatch the show a couple years after the finale and couldn't get through the first season, I felt the cringe then.
Great video as usual, Looking forward to the next one!!
How I Met Your Mother is more entertaining than Friends, but Robin deserved so much better.
I definitely agree that HIMYM is cringe and have a lot of flaws, but some of your interpretations were so weird. Both the show and the movie High School Musical carry the lesson about NOT maintaining the status quo and instead being authentic, doing the things you love without shame, and having the courage to do so. I get that maybe you were making a joke with the lyrics of the status quo music but it was also the point in this section, so... I thought that was a weird argument. Like you haven't realized that the show is about trying to do what you love.
But in the end what these characters love to do is staying in their comfort zone, upholding the status quo.
I believe the High School Musical lyrics were meant as an ironic joke. Like the lyrics *do* say that, but it's *obviously* a first-act song where the hero believes the wrong thing.
With the HIMYM part, I think that the show's stated message of doing "the things you love without shame" actually does serve to promote the status quo when you look at the particular things that the characters want, or "love". Like in the clips in this video, even the character's fantasies of the future take the shape of images of the past.
Lmao yeah HSM song is definitely not serious my bit about the song was just a joke
HIMYM is crazy to me because it used to be my favourite show in my early/mid teenage. Like the show had already wrapped up and I cringe to admit that I rewatched it mutliple times lmao. It was a really strange experience then to sort of be in acknowledgement of how Barney is not great but having rose tintet glasses for the things in it that I resonated with and that were heartwarming for me only to then go back to it pretty recent,y and no longer be blind to all the biggotry in the show. It’s wild because now I’m realizing the internal damage that thing contributed to as a she/her in my teens who didn’t know I was gay and enby yet and actively felt like I had to combat something in me that failed to meet the expedtations of womanhood that I internalized from media like HIMYM….
I'm rewatching it now, and I agree with your analysis. Great work!
This is one of the worst reviews I have ever seen.
I will randomly watch the show but my hatred for how the show ended is always in my head ruining the old enjoyment I used to have watching this show…
I know someone misses the point when they're annoyed Ted got back with Robin. Its about what is right at certain moments in your life.
HIMYM is so horrible and sexist that I’m so unbelievably ashamed that I used to like it.
hey great video! some many things resonated with me and it affirms i feel about himym being just like all the other problematic shows i use to watch.. what’s your friends yt account?
Have you just started an yt channel?
That's awesome! Amazing review!
Hugs from Brazil :)
I've been getting ig reels of scenes from the show and "existentially horrifying" is extremely precise and poignant :')
This video was so important and oddly comforting to my early twenties crisis, thank you
I grew up watching this show as a teenager. I had a buddy that projected himself on to Ted, but admired Barney. Lot of the group admired Barney and his "intellectual" prowess. I did like the show for the gatherings. It was game of thrones type of watching but for suburb kids. I didn't grow up in the suburbs so this kinda of get together felt familiar and comforting. But the Barney thing. I like Niel, alot, and I think his acting is why he got away with the predatory behavior from the character. For me though, the other characters acceptance of the behavior is what I think supports your hypothesis. Comfort, we let the lion sleep next to us because we know it is fed. I am extrapolating a little, so don't mind me. The group would rein in Barney's behavior sometimes when they were close proximity to the group, but not always. Robin and Lilly have both been accosted by Barney in front of their partners respectively. Just alot going on in the show. But yeah the first time I thought about HIMYM in years. Easy sub.
If they ever make a live action pepper ann movie, you should star as the titular character.
Love watching content outside my comfort zone. I have watched the entire show in like a week or something and the only thing I remember viscerally hating was the ending episode(s?). Yes, the "this is how X friend met the mother" for the last season was ridiculously corny, but hey, it's fiction, it has a right to have fun with reality.
I used to love HIMYM when I watched it first. I'm Brazilian and the show wasnt that big around here so when I Discovered it around 2012 It was amazing. Later, around 2017 me and a group of very close friends entering our 20's really idêntified with The show. But now as a Non-Monogamous adult and social worker, when I tried to rewatch it, it had a sour tarde. Between the sexual predator behavior of Barney and him being an actual serial *apist (in Brazilian law, since here If someone defrauds another tô have sex, its seem as *ape, like he used to) and The total invalidation of other ways to love If not the tradicional ramantic way (every character that wasnt involved in a fulfilling romantic relationship was incomplete and everyone who had more than one partner were actually unhappy and afraid of commitment. So after a few episodes I gave UP. I like that I enjoyed liking it growing up, but lets leave It in the past
Context is key. No point in viewing the past through a present-day lens.
As much I loved since I grown up with this show (which I shouldn't do at that age) I agree with your take. Yeah, it is sitcom, but at the same time it can be criticize because everything can/should be criticize (still hate the ending tho)
Those of us who were the age for it when it aired. We knew it was a shitty show at the time. It was an obvious attempt to develop parasocial bonds but the characters were just as unlikeable as The Big Bang theory.
There was some young famous producer woman who wrote this show along with two others simultaneously. She was like the god of churning out cheap sitcoms for a dying broadcast TV industry.
Wait... is, no, it can't be. Is Big Bang theory aging better than How I Met Your Mother? What a sad reality? Big Bang even has young Sheldon which by all accounts, is doing a decent job addressing the problems of the original. This is sad 😔
I've bever seen the show. I'll save this and come back after I binge it later.
I agree with a lot of your points, but not why people aren't going back to it as much as other big sitcoms. It's because nostalgia culture hasn't reached it yet. People aren't nostalgic for 2010, but one day they probably will be. And hey, I don't particularly like this show, but it's not like it's forgotten. It's still in syndication all over the world and it remains a bankable asset to streaming services. So its probably not as unpopular these days as it might appear, even if it doesn't have that Friends status
I was just saying to myself how 2001 seemed to be "the last new year" I remember truly having. It's hard to pin down why that is - did 9-11 cause this? A permanent feedback loop? Is it late stage capitalism, as millennials onwards don't have the same life accomplishments marking time our elders had? Or does everyone feel that way when they become an adult? I graduated high school soon after 2001. Maybe it's a combination of all three. I'm glad I'm not alone in the observation though! I definitely noticed who did and didn't grow as people based on how fanatical people remained about HIMYM as we got further away from high school. The finale was enragimg for a ton of people because a huge chunk of us grew up over 9 years and then all of a sudden a part of our compass said north was south suddenly 😂
"Huh, sure, I'll check this out." "To quote Mark Fisher..." *Subscribes*
I was on board, then you brought up mark fisher. Then I was REALLY on board lol
This is such a brillant video essay! Thank you for appearing on my youtube page.
I've had such a blast since finding his channel 💖💖
I caught on early that this show and Big Bang Theory were super problematic, unfortunately. HIMYM came out when I was in high school and I thought it was kinda funny. It was no Scrubs or anything 🤷♀️😅 (doesn't hold up as bad as you'd think especially since a LOT of the comedy is racial. Still some smudges here and the tho). I started seeing all the misogyny and racism and then couldn't believe I had spent 22ish years NOT seeing it. Also unfortunately, these were my grandma's 2 fav sitcoms 💀💀 dont get me started on tosh.0 😅
Hope you're doing great! 💖💖
i’m one of those few who never watched a single episode of this show, and never felt compelled to, even when everyone around me was going crazy about it. maybe bc i was a troubled mentally ill queer teen then, who preferred watching show where i could find relatable characters, and they were not. i also think many of that era’s sitcoms aged poorly, this one, the big bang theory, and many others just worked then but would never air today (luckily). the prob is my country is stuck in the middle ages so this series is still idolatrated from many ppl, even younger than me (i’m 25) and god i HATE it when i have to be the person who points out how problematic these shows were 🗿
I mean, I'd hazard a guess that billions of people alive today have never watched a single episode of HIMYM
I don't think there's any episode of any TV show ever that's been seen by more than _maybe_ a billion people from original air date to today, and I wouldn't be too surprised if none have ever even got above 500 million
That's a crazy way to start a video essay, dunno if I should be shocked or impressed
We might never know how close we came to a Lily Aldrin ‘soft -a’
I feel like it’s rare to find someone who doesn’t like this show. I was always on the fence about it but all of my friends liked it. Years later I can proudly proclaim that it’s always been bad!
Interesting video thank you. I hadn't thought about many of the things you bring up so yay for me and double yay for you.
Tbh, I don't think that's it. Ppl are just nostalgic for different things right know. We're living in the revival of late 90s/early 2000s - that's why there's so much talk about Friends. Just look at today's fashion. It's just not HIMYM's time + truth be told I think HIMYM is more controversial because one of its main charcters is basically a sexual predator - and it is the character that's supposed to be the fan favourite! Not to mention the universaly hates last season. Look at how no one talks about GOT - because of its disappointing ending.
Honestly looking at the show with this lens just makes one of the worst TV endings make sense on a meta level. It's still an awful ending that throws out everything the show built for seasons on end, but hey they certainly didnt let go of that """nostalgia"""
I don't agree with the point that no one thinks about this show. I feel like there have consistently been video essays and think pieces since it ended. Also, nostalgia is wildly popular now- for better or for worse (thinking the enormous range of tiktok aesthetics). But I think the appeal of the structure is more so about how time and aging work as a young adult. The smoking episode is my favorite use of the narrative structure in the show's run, for what it's worth.
This show was certainly problematic in content. Although they painted Barney's behavior as wrong in-show, marketing his character with the Playbook etc was... a choice. And I think the show attempted to be inclusive in ways Friends failed, but still managed to fall through the cracks in terms of being very anti asian and fatphobic.
Good luck with your channel - good research and editing! Im following :)
I think that's mostly a network marketing thing than an actual issue if the show itself, plus the play book is built to be outlandish, nothing written in it would actually work and you'd have to be a next class idiot actual attempt any of them, as for Bing anti Asian and fatphobic I just have to disagree, I don't think the show has any hatred for any select group of people, nor do the characters in it, but those characters (being purposefully made flawed) do have biases which leads to them saying bad thing's.
In an internet filled with videos by people who ignore the portion of the audience that loved the ending, people who can't grasp that that their views are the only views, videos by people who think they know the show better than the creators of the show, you have produced easily the cringiest "the show sucks because it didn't predict who *I* would be video" I have ever seen.
Touched a nerve eh? Lol they are entitled to their opinion and nobody is forcing you to watch this.
@@bengallup9321 That's why I shut it off after a certain point. And yes, they're entitled to their opinion, and I'm entitled to mine, and if they don't want to see comments differing from theirs they can always shut off comments on the video.
@@KennAKALeointernet is full of people showing in their comments showing they missed the point and projekt their ownd flawed half baked way of thinking on others cause they dare dislike something they like.
Cringe, there is no other words for it, it's emberasing.
@@petrfedor1851that goes both ways dude.
Wow it is like you didn't see any of the underlying messages of friendship and developing relationships in the early seasons.
Shes a woke k8ll joy non being
This HIMYM slander will not be tolerated!
Grow up? Maybe?
@@end_phase2749 It was a joke
I always thought that show was bad..I remember at the time it survived its first season because all the prominent shows were on hold for the writer’s strike.
A phenomenal show in all the wrong ways! Never have I seen a series without a SINGLE likable character (oh - Scrubs comes a close second to this!). I never rooted for ANYONE in both said series because the characters were such narcissistic and manipulative jerks. And imagine, a series like Two and a Half Men had several really likable characters and treated LGBTQ issues quite respectfully. One of my favorite episodes has Chris O'Donnel play a former gilrfriend of Charlie's who had transitioned. The character was treated very well and the comedy was not cheap or transphobic in the least. Great segment. Subscribed, liked and commented!
Go watch Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
The main cast range from mentally unstable to downright sociopathic
@@miguelpadeiro762 I forgot to mention this abhorrent series! You're right! :)
@@isaganipalanca8803 I don't like it =/= it is bad.
@@miguelpadeiro762 Both shows are! I lost interest with "It's always sunny..." quite qeickly and sort of hate watched HIMYM. The finale was hideous. It was like watching a slow motion train wreck grind to a halt. The only thing I liked was that a gay man played despicable Barney, the ultimate bro. What irony!
The Future is cancelled: Compare 1964 to 1984 and 2004, see the massive changes that happened. And now look at 2004 to 2024, only thing that changed is the size of our phone and the speed of the internet. We went from optimistic progress to cynical stagnation.
well that was anxiety inducing. Great video!
yay cool new channel! 🖤
especially really great point about the format
Ahhh thank you so muchhh :’)
This show was equally as vapid, shallow, and unfunny as 'the big bang theory'. Try watching either with the laugh track turned off, both are like the death of comedy, while reinforcing a shit-ton of deeply flawed, problematic stereotypes. The only TV comedy from this era that holds up is 'its always sunny in Philadelphia' which was unafraid to embrace and celebrate it's deeply flawed, amoral characters, as opposed to seeming to wallow in nothing more than baby-brained sentimental nostalgia for it's own sake.
Barney has some moments, but the show becomes a complete dud piece of shit5
Starting with 911 is crazy
Just wanted to say: love this channel!
Ahh thank you so much for your support!! ❤️
Even when it was on I thought it was misogynist. Still watched it though. If you want to avoid misogyny you have to live like a cloistered nun.
Yup. The world view of two young white urban male writers. Both immature and one physically unappealing.
Never found the show particularly appealing.
At least the more acceptable misandry and man bashing in current entertainment more than makes up for all that misogyny huh.
@@Iron-Bridge is there? I don't think so. Just mockery of women who don't get along with men. Or weird revenge fantasies that have nothing to do with what women really fantasize about, but are what men fear women will do when we finally lose our patience with them 😂
The ending ruined the whole show for me, and that's what made me prefer to forget it.