a pilot episode, in poetic rerun
[STAND-UP: JERRY ONSTAGE — DIM SPOTLIGHT]
ba-dowmp bwowm bwuhh-dowm
They say the algorithm learns you—
but it’s more like a nosy neighbor
who saw you buy one mango
and now leaves tropical fruit at your door,
every morning,
like it’s helping.
What is “For You,” anyway?
I didn’t ask for this.
[SCENE 1: JERRY'S APARTMENT]
Enter Kramer, hurricane with hair.
“Buddy!”—his phone open to a girl
eating pickles while juggling trauma.
“This is content!”
Jerry blinks. “It’s a cry for help.”
Cue laugh track.
“Your TikTok is broken,”
Kramer insists,
“you have to flirt with it—
Like Elaine at brunch,
a little heart, a little scroll,
ghost it, then come back with flowers.”
Jerry: “So it’s dating?”
Kramer: “It’s data, Jerry. Data is dating.”
Cut to: static zoom of Jerry’s face.
[STAND-UP: JERRY RETURNS — MICROPHONE, ONE HAND]
The phone doesn’t forget.
It remembers that one late night you watched
a guy clean his gutters
and suddenly, you’re in GutterTok.
You’re not even a homeowner.
Who is this for?
[SCENE 2: MONK’S CAFÉ]
Elaine’s chewing aggressively.
“I commented ‘lol’
on a guy’s folded-shirt tutorial
and now he thinks I’m flirting.”
George, sipping soda:
“Well, were you?”
“GEORGE. It was a neatly folded shirt.
I don’t want a boyfriend,
I want closet storage solutions.”
George nods,
glances nervously at his phone,
which shows him six baldness cures.
He turns it face down.
Elaine notices. Laugh track.
[SCENE 3: JERRY'S APARTMENT — NIGHT]
Now they’re all there.
Kramer’s showing off a viral dance.
Elaine’s deleting comments.
George is incognito browsing wig reviews.
Jerry: “TikTok doesn’t listen to you.
It watches what you want
before you know you want it.”
He scrolls.
A crying panda,
a war memorial,
a woman whispering into a banana.
He throws the phone on the couch
like it bit him.
Kramer: “It’s curated chaos.”
Elaine: “It’s passive-aggressive surveillance.”
George: “It’s my mother with Wi-Fi.”
[STAND-UP: JERRY, EXASPERATED]
Targeted ads are just
exes who never got closure.
“Hey, remember that rash?
We do.”
“You still sad? Try bread knives.”
And what is TikTok etiquette, anyway?
Is there a proper bye
before scrolling past someone crying in their car?
Do you wave?
Leave a like?
Write “you got this, queen”?
[FINAL SCENE: PUTTY APPEARS — SLOW ZOOM IN]
PUTTY, stoic:
“I don’t use TikTok.
I just… watch my microwave.”
Silence.
JERRY (flat): “Good talk.”
[CLOSING SEINFELD THEME — DEEPER BASS, NETFLIX LOGO BURST]
ba-dowm ba-bowwmp*
NETFLIX WITH ADS: “Next up, The Crown: Algorithms Unleashed.”