There’s a certain luxury that playing a beloved TV character affords. If you’ve been the star of a wildly popular, generation-defining sitcom, for example, you get to do things that most people in polite society couldn’t easily justify.
Hypothetically speaking, if you were Jerry Seinfeld, star and creator of a show beloved by millions the world over, you might be able to get away with such things as, oh I don't know - dating a 17-year-old when you’re 39, cuckolding a man two months after he’d married his wife or even having the audacity to front a streetwear collab when you’re nearly 70 years old.
In the latest iteration of Seinfeld’s trip through midlife angst, he’s partnered with achingly cool streetwear brand Kith, who’ve produced some of the oddest publicity shots I’ve seen in a long time.
Jerry Seinfeld for Kith Fall 2022 pic.twitter.com/NGmvFj4Wmg
— Ronnie Fieg (@RonnieFieg) September 6, 2022
Jerry, cosplaying as the sort of creative industry-adjacent early/mid-30s man that you regret getting stuck talking to at a Simcha, has presumably been paid an absolute fortune to front clothing that looks about 40 years younger than he is. But why does he need it?
Seinfeld the show, has made Seinfeld the man richer than he could ever possibly imagined, he has a billion cars, a Netflix-funded vanity project and guest slots on any comedy he could ask for.
I'm entirely open to the idea that this is a classic Seinfeld bit, that the great comedian is aware of the ridiculous nature of this and is playing us all for a laugh. If it was all a joke, it might just be the funniest thing he's done in years, but I'm not so sure it is.
And I don't think its for the money either. As is often the way with mid-life crises, it's rarely about the material circumstances, it’s about the feeling of recapturing lost youth, reassuring yourself that you have your finger on the pulse of what young people really care about. And I get that, I really do. But Jerry, enough already, there’s only so long you can stretch out midlife for, leave some crises for the rest of us.
