Mark and Matt recap Community, Season 5 Episode 8: “App Development and Condiments.”
[audio:http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/oti-recap-community-s05e08/oti-recap-community-s05e08.mp3]→ Download The Community Season 5, Episode 8 Recap
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Further Reading
- The Death and Life of Great American Cities
by Jane Jacobs (affiliate link)
Yelp actually does try and clarify the meaning of it’s star system. When you hover over each star to give your rating you see a cute interpretation of what each rating entails.
1 Star: Eek! Methinks not.
2 Stars: Meh. I’ve experienced better.
3 Stars: A-OK.
4 Stars: Yay! I’m a fan.
5 Stars: Woohoo! As good as it gets!
I guess I don’t have it in me to completely condemn review culture since it’s such a large part of my life and I do find it useful.
I wouldn’t say that Abed is just pleased with the app because it allows him to quantify and predict the outcomes of social interactions. It also allows him to belong because it makes other people more like him (though I think it was a stretch at the end when he was a one… like everyone else).
An interesting aspect of this episode and other episodes about the collapse of the social order at Greendale is that there are one or two characters who aren’t prey to the system. There are revolutionaries. And as easily as Greendale falls into anarchy, I think the presence of those characters betrays an essential optimism.
The show focused mainly on Shirley’s means of gaining social capital through artifice in a way that felt gendered… gossip, compliments, passive aggressive manipulation and Jeff’s methods with the macho bro culture and then stand up comedy? I wasn’t sure what to make of the other fives. I think Professor Hickey was just there as a joke about the sudden burst of attention someone gets when facebook reminds you that it’s their birthday. Was Chang’s presence meant to say something about people with disabilities?