Why freaks and geeks

Thousands of likes and hundreds of comments suggest that a new fan community for the beloved show is growing on the video-based social app. From Gen X's bootleg DVDs to legal streaming today, Freaks and Geeks has rippled through generations of teenagers like a secret manual for life. It remains relevant to young people today because it uniquely showcases the challenging, awkward shapeshifting of adolescence—and lets us laugh at it.

Feig intended the show to act as a kind of tonic for teen angst, something to help prepare kids for high school. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter , he said:. I watched Freaks and Geeks for the first time in , when I was fourteen and terrified of starting high school.

Even with its wide readership, Rookie still feels like somewhat of a shared secret, an online-publication-turned-IRL-community of young people shaped by its brilliant and sensitive writing about feminism, pop culture, and growing up. Along with other cult coming-of-age shows, Freaks and Geeks was one of the pop cultural centerpieces of Rookie ; it wasn't merely another favorite show, but rather a signal of kindred spirit and a basis for friendship among fans.

Today, that same sort of digital community around Freaks and Geeks just might be materializing again on TikTok , the social media favorite of the current youth. Now, in the same manner of the comment sections on Rookie and the notes and reblogs on Tumblr posts, I see people coming to the show by internet peer word of mouth—watching TikTok clips from the show, asking for the title, and gaining access to an illicit roadmap on where to watch it before it was legally streaming.

Videos tagged " freaksandgeeks" have over In the time since the show hit Hulu, more videos have been popping up, with seemingly more and more views, engagement, and comments from users extolling the show, celebrating its new availability , and lamenting its cancellation.

A modern youth audience for a year-old show brings an updated perspective. On TikTok, some imagine how each character would reply when asked what pronouns they use. Some imagine the characters' astrological charts. She was telling the truth lol. In other videos , users faithfully recreate the Freaks and Geeks intro. A high school mathlete starts hanging out with a group of burnouts while her younger brother navigates his freshman year. Sign In. Episode guide.

Play trailer Comedy Drama. Creator Paul Feig. Top credits Creator Paul Feig. See more at IMDbPro. Top rated TV Episodes Browse episodes. Top Top-rated.

Clip Trailer Freaks and Geeks: The Complete Series. Freaks And Geeks: Join Us. Freaks And Geeks. Video The Evolution of Busy Philipps.

The Evolution of Nerds. The Watchlist With Judd Apatow. Photos Top cast Edit. Jerome Elston Scott Jermaine as Jermaine …. Paul Feig. More like this. Watch options. Storyline Edit. It's the s and at McKinley High, there's two different groups of teenagers, the Freaks with cool and charismatic Daniel Desario and tomboy Lindsay Weir and the Geeks with Lindsay's shy younger brother Sam, gentle Bill Haverchuck, and self-proclaimed ladies' man Neal Schweiber.

It's and this is what high school was like for the rest of us. What was NBC thinking? Created by TV legend Paul Feig and executive-produced by Apatow, Freaks and Geeks told the story of an interconnected gang of high school outcasts, misfits, slackers, and dorks personified in the central siblings Lindsay Linda Cardellini and Sam Weir John Francis Daley.

The series was tonally complex, and perhaps a bit too serialized for its time. Freaks and Geeks had the rare ability to elicit tears as well as belly laughs, and perhaps that was part of the problem for the network at the time. As a result, NBC couldn't decide how to properly slot the show. The network debuted the first two episodes in a bizarre weekend timeslot Saturday 8 PM , then let the series go on hiatus while it broadcast the World Series for three weeks.

After that, Freaks and Geeks came back for a couple episodes before heading off the air again to accommodate the mid-season lull around the Holidays. With all the shuffling, the fans simply couldn't keep track of it. An emotionally complex show with a serialized story can be absolutely hobbled by intermittent scheduling, but the weirdo Saturday timeslot came with one more fatal vice: a head-to-head matchup with Regis Philbin.