Image via Complex Original
HBO's post-Game of Thrones comedy block returns this Sunday with Veep and Silicon Valley. While Veep is heading into its fourth season in perfect comedic stride, Silicon Valley will follow up an uneven, if promising, start with its sophomore effort. Though not every episode is brilliant comedy, the tech industry satire has hit the mark thus far. And as tech companies emerge as some of the country's most important corporations, and industry leaders become increasingly prominent on the national stage, we need this satire more than ever.
Throughout the show's first season, Silicon Valley took jabs at the most ridiculous aspects of tech culture. Sometimes the writers simply pulled events from the pages of Valleywag and Gizmodo and plopped them into the scripts basically unchanged. This was often all they had to do because so many real life events in the tech world are too ridiculous to believe. Here's how Silicon Valley Perfectly Captures Everything We Hate About Tech Culture.
Stupid Start-Up Names
Appeared in: Entire Season
Hooli, Silicon Valley's version of Google; Goolybib, a fictional start-up; and Aviato, Erlich's Priceline-like airline company, perfectly capture how absurd the names of tech companies have become. Companies are desperate to stand out in the tech space, and demand for unique names is at an all-time high. As a result, start-ups are in a perpetual contest to find the most ridiculous name possible. We live in a world where Doostang and Oooooc.com are real things, so a name like Hooli actually feels like the Silicon Valley writing staff was exhibiting some restraint.
Everyone's Brilliant App Ideas
Appeared in: Episodes 1, 7, and 8
In Hollywood, everyone has a screenplay idea. In New York, people love to tell you about the business they'll someday launch. There is nothing quite as American as a half-baked idea, and in San Francisco, those ideas are apps. Silicon Valley nods to the dreamers and schemers of the Valley with the Panic-A-Tech app, pitched by a doctor played by Andy Daly. The app, which begins as a distant dream in the Pilot, eventually ends up in action, complete with anal suppositories.
Many of Which Are Completely Useless
Appeared in: Episodes 1, 6, 7, and 8
Many apps try to solve problems that no one actually has. Silicon Valley skewers these superfluous apps throughout its first season with apps like GlassesTrackr (helps people find their glasses), Nip Alert (detects erect nipples in the area), an unnamed water fountain location app, and an app called Cupcakely, which we don't learn much about, but must be worthless.
Awful Footwear
Appeared in: Entire Season
A dressed down attitude has been a hallmark of the tech sector for years, from Steve Jobs' turtlenecks to Mark Zuckerberg's T-shirts. Though the anti-suit attitude is pervasive throughout the tech industry, nowhere is it more obnoxious than on the feet of the technorati. If you walk through San Francisco, you'll note that there are more chunky sandals and Vibrams per capita than in the rest of the country combined. Thankfully, Crocs have gone out of style or we might be forced to endure press conferences held by C.E.O.s wearing neon rubber on their feet.
In Silicon Valley, terrible footwear is a badge of honor. As Erlich puts in Episode 4, "I am wearing sandals, so I’m iconoclasting a little bit."
Decadent Parties
Appeared in: Episodes 1 and 4
Silicon Valley's toga party featuring living statues would fit right in with real world tech shindigs. Tech company parties are known to combine the opulence of The Great Gatsby with the quirk of Zooey Deschanel to create events that ensure that tech employees will be the first pressed against the wall when the revolution comes. Google alone has held parties with a giant snowglobe, Cirque Du Soleil performances, and a ferris wheel. Though Google does it best, they aren't the only company that throws ridiculous parties. Last year's holiday season was a contest among Silicon Valley's biggest companies to see who could show the least restraint.
Asshole Wunderkinds
Appeared in: Episode 6
The tech sector has started producing that special breed of jerk that used to only appear in entertainment, athletics, and royal succession: the young, rich asshole. As we've seen with coked-up child stars and reckless athletes, teenagers given no limits and more money than they can handle will end up as little pieces of shit. Real world Silicon Valley is full of stories of young prodigies who have made millions and become hellions. Tales like those surrounding young app charlatan Nick D'Aloisio make Silicon Valley's fictional coding phenom known as The Carver look well-mannered by comparison.
Niche Online Dating Apps
Appeared in: Episodes 1, 7, and 8
From Farmer's Only to VampirePassions, online dating platforms directed towards extremely specific audiences remind us just how particular romantic tastes can be. Of course, Mike Judge and company had to take a shot at the plethora of online dating options in today's marketplace. In Episode 7, Erlich discusses the hottest new online dating app, Spinder: "It’s like Tinder but for Spinsters. Elderly women looking for sex.”
Ridiculous Construction Projects
Appeared in: Episodes 6 and 7
Peter Gregory's (Christopher Evan Welch) plot to built an island straddling two time zones seems completely absurd, but like much of Silicon Valley's most ridiculous moments, this plot point is rooted in fact. Google's barges made headlines last year when San Francisco's government aired its displeasure and the project was cancelled. PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel has raised funds for building an island (and, presumably, a tax shelter) that doesn't look all the different from Gregory's. Sometimes all satire has to do is present the facts.
Companies That "Disrupt" the Norm
Appeared in: Entire Season
Just like how popular culture drives slang into the ground (remember when you loved "on fleek"?), tech culture overuses its buzzwords to the point of self-parody. "Engagement," "viral," "hack," and many other words have been embraced and ruined by the tech community, but no word has been quite as pervasive and used so broadly as "disrupt."
Originally reserved for companies that are truly changing the landscape of their business, these days every company tries to brand itself as a disrupter. It was only appropriate that in the first scene of Silicon Valley we hear, "We're making a lot of money. And yes, we're disrupting digital media" announced proudly by a clueless young tech C.E.O. It's no surprise that the season's climax is held at TechCrunch Disrupt.
Martin Starr's Gilfoyle takes the medal for the use of "disruption" in Season 1 when he announces that he's going to "disrupt" the hotel bathroom.
And Ones That Love to "Pivot"
Appeared in: Episodes 7 and 8
Tech is just as interested in pivoting as it is in disruption. The idea behind pivoting sums up the ridiculousness of doing business in the 21st century. To pivot is to keep your name and your brand identity, but change what you do entirely. In the final episode of the Season 1, Zach Woods' character explains pivoting in all of its glorious absurdity:
A lot of successful startups launched with a different business model, and when they ran into trouble they pivoted to something new right. Like Instagram, that was a location-based check-in service when it started and then they pivoted or Chat Roulette. That was social media and then they pivoted to become a playground for the sexually monstrous. We just need a new idea, something that people want. We can pivot too.
Corporate Benevolence
Appeared in: Entire Season
Apple, Google, Facebook, and the rest go to great lengths to let you know just how much good they are doing in the world, and their claims are often exaggerated. In the first episode of Silicon Valley, we meet Gavin Belson (Matt Ross), a tech billionaire who sells himself as world savior. We then see how this image of businessman/savior trickles into even the smallest companies during TechCrunch Disrupt, where every presenter emphasizes that their app will "make the world a better place."
Brogrammers
Appeared in: Entire Season
The kind of alpha males who were once attracted to Wall Street are now coming out to Silicon Valley to make their fortunes. As a result, the brogrammer was born.
Silicon Valley tosses a few barbs at brogrammer culture, largely at the expense of two characters we meet when they ask Richard if he's been working out. Sadly, brogrammers are very real and they want to know if you even lift, bro.
Sexism
Appeared in: Entire Season
Some of Silicon Valley's sharpest satire and some of the show's biggest missteps involve their send-ups of sexism in tech culture. Our heroes are painfully awkward around women in their own unique hard-to-watch ways. We watch the Pied Piper boys embarrass themselves in front of a stripper, cease functioning when one of them gets a girlfriend, and get hung up on any women who will give them the time of day.
Unfortunately, Silicon Valley's first season had trouble playing off of sexism in the tech world without indulging in some sexism of its own. Women generally exist on the show as sex objects, with the exception of Gavin's assistant Monica, who seems to exist solely as Richard's object of desire. Scenes like Erlich's sleeping with a contest judge's wife and a tech employee pretending she has coding knowledge when she actually runs social media indulge in stereotypes of their own without finding much satirical fruit. When Erlich says, "Let me explain something to you. Your whole life you’ve been an ugly chick. Now suddenly you’re a hot chick with big tits and small nipples. Guys like that will keep coming around. Don’t be a slut Richard,” doesn't do enough comedic work to be worth its ugly tone.
While it's great that Silicon Valley has tech industry sexism in its sights, here's hoping they tackle the issue with a little more nuance in Season 2.