Are old Nickelodeon shows good examples of American culture?

26 comments

1. Good examples, yes, to an extent. American culture includes media. Cartoons and kid live action shows are a major part of children culture in any country.

   I wouldn’t say they accurately portray American culture though, as TV isn’t real life. It’s a nice starting point but TV shows work on exaggerations and biases to make content. It’s very loosely representative of real life.

2. I mean, it’s TV. It’s not gonna be super accurate. A lot of it is also old, so it’s not gonna be super up to date. But there are things to learn about American culture from them, and they’re definitely part of the larger cultural tapestry.

3. Yes, every court case ends with sending in the dancing lobsters. ^(I wish)

4. It depends what you mean by “good example of culture.” I don’t think any comedic show, especially those marketed towards children, are accurate representations of American life. If you watch Saved by the Bell (or whatever), you don’t get any sense of what life in a high school was actually like when it was on the air.

   But, American children definitely watch those shows.. so, there’s an indirect understanding of american culture.. clothes, hairstyles, music, etc.

5. No TV show is an accurate representation of anything.

6. For what it’s worth I think those shows you named will connect more with younger millennials, I’m in my early 30s and they were all a little bit after my time. I couldn’t tell you what any of them were like.

7. TiL that those shows are “old” and here I am having grown up with “Salute your Shorts” “Pete & Pete” and “Hey Dude”

8. I’m a millennial and didn’t watch any of those shows.

   Nickelodeon when I was a kid was Pete & Pete, Hey Arnold, Ah Real Monsters, Doug, Hey Dude, Are You Afraid of the Dark, All That, Legends of the Hidden Temple, that one trivia/game show? And then Nick At Nite which was aired on Nick’s main channel at night was stuff like I Dream of Jeanie, Mary Tyler Moore, The Cosby Show, The Bob Newhart Show, and other classics from the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

   Stuff like The Amanda Show existed but I was largely aging out of those shows.

   I never got into Spongebob but to me that signaled the end of Nickelodeon.

   I will say shows like Hey Arnold kind of ruined my suburban life for me. I grew up in a suburban neighborhood in northwest Indianapolis. Entirely residential, no public places within the neighborhood, no sidewalks, and no connectivity to any other neighborhoods or elsewhere in the city. Nearest bus stop was 3 miles away, and getting there meant using roads with no sidewalks.

   So to see an urban environment where kids could transport themselves to school, get around, walk to parks and other activities, really appealed to me. Of course there was also the futuristic stuff in the show like some of the remote control stuff in his room that was interesting as well, but to me the urban environment really spoke to me as to what my suburban life was missing. A lot of my friends lived elsewhere and sometimes I felt like I wasn’t able to forge deeper relationships with them because they didn’t live next door to me.

   TLDR: Media is a part of our culture but these aren’t documentaries. There’s some basis of reality in them but they are works of fiction and aren’t meant to showcase average, every day life, particularly in the plots.

9. I remember watching every one of those shows and being convinced they were the richest people ever. Normal people can’t afford anything near the lifestyle demonstrated on those shows.

10. I mean I guess? I always found those teen/tween shoes to be a bit…kitschy?

    Growing up in the Bay Area in a working class area that was like 50% Latino and 50% SE Asian, none of those shows portrayed my experience when I was growing up.

11. I mean, as much as any TV comedy is ever a representation of anything, sure. Those shows were on just a couple years past my peak Nickelodeon years, but for many years Nick shows didn’t have the best reputation for being particularly diverse – partly because in the earlier days of the channel, it was mostly white middle class families that had cable, so they programmed for that audience. So maybe take it with that grain of salt.

12. Hell naw. Their shows only take place in California or Washington. Where else can people afford to send their kids to an expensive boarding school in Malibu where teenagers take beach trips alone to Santa Barbara County (that’s where Prince Harry and Meghan Markle live). Carly lives in a loft in Seattle. A loft! The median housing price in Seattle is $820k. Tori went to a performing arts school in *Hollywood*.

13. Those are silly television shows written for literal children, they’re not intended to be an accurate reflection of anything.

14. Since you mentioned being “accurate examples of the USA”, absolutely not! I couldn’t think of a single kid who went to a school even remotely like Zoey 101’s Pacific Coast Academy and it’s been kind of well established that Spencer and Carly’s apartment in iCarly couldn’t possibly exist in an actual apartment complex.

    As someone said already, these shows ARE good examples of American culture as far as being popular TV shows a lot of us watched back in the day. Depending on the age of the person, you could feasibly bring up one of these Nick shows and have a conversation about them. “Iconic” is too strong a word, but there’s no doubt these are shows a ton of Americans would know about

15. Prometheus and bob was great example of human culture in general

16. The movie Good Burger is actually fairly decent critique of big business chasing success at all costs – pricing smaller competitors out of the market, using dangerous fillers/chemicals in food to make people think they’re getting more value for the money, engaging in corporate espionage. It’s definitely on the nose but you certainly see shades of these monolithic American companies in Mondo Burger (I can’t believe I’m typing this lol).

17. I don’t think any of them are realistic if that’s what you’re asking. However an interesting point about iCarly is that it makes some accurate (although exaggerated) points about the life of a YouTuber before YouTubers were really a thing.

18. Oh man I feel so old. Those “old Nickelodeon shows” you listed sound new to me haha.

    I’m from the era of All That, Kennan and Kel, and Clarissa Explains it All.

19. Hey don’t forget us older gen z, we grew up around those shows too!

    But yeah they’re part of American culture for sure

20. No

21. No, but that doesn’t stop foreigners from thinking it is.

22. You can’t do that in television is spot on

23. Now all I can think about is that rich ass school they all went to on zoey 101 where there was a competition to win scooters and they just drove around campus casually on them

24. No, the high schools, for example, that you see on those shows are absolutely nothing like real high school lol

25. Sure. Out culture is not monolithic so there are Americans that can relate to those shows.

26. Goddamn I still thought those were the new Nickelodeon shows. I should probably go buy a grave or something.