What’s the Deal With Adulthood? 25 Years Later, ‘Seinfeld’ Feels Revelatory.

Early in the pandemic, I developed a strange habit. Every night, I’d slip my phone under my pillow and listen to an episode (or six) of “Seinfeld” through a few inches of poly-fill stuffing. Though for anyone who knows me, that inclination probably tracks.

I started watching “Seinfeld” when it debuted on NBC in 1989 and never stopped, watching and rewatching every episode relentlessly on various platforms, reading the scripts in my free time and annoyingly inserting quotes into conversation at every chance. (Apologies to all.)

When the show concluded 25 years ago on Sunday, just days before I graduated from high school, I and my fellow young “Seinfeld” aficionados gathered in front of the TV to say goodbye to Jerry, Elaine, George, Kramer and the many indelible side characters, like Yev Kassem (“The Soup Nazi”) and Marla Penny (“The Virgin”), who denounced them in a courtroom in the show’s polarizing finale. It was technically the end of an era, but for me, it was only the beginning of what would go on to inform every phase of my life.

As it turns out, my strange pillow habit did more than amuse and calm me while I lay sleepless during a profoundly stressful time. In those hours, I started to think about the show differently. Why, as the fabric of society seemed to be fraying, did it seem so prescient? Why did it seem like the four friends — who gleefully, proudly, deftly flouted societal conventions and the rules of traditional adulthood — had long ago tapped into some fundamental truths that, because of the pandemic’s disruptions, many were re-examining?

For the somehow uninitiated, “Seinfeld,” created by Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, stars Seinfeld as a fictionalized version of himself and follows his shenanigans with his three closest friends: his childhood buddy, George Costanza (Jason Alexander); his former girlfriend turned pal, Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus); and his oddball neighbor, Kramer (Michael Richards). It is regarded as one of the greatest shows of all time.

It has consistently been framed as a comedy about four terrible people, with good reason. Jerry and his fellow misfits lied, cheated and stole. They were petty and shallow. They created a framework for “bad” sitcom characters that shows like “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” would embrace with great relish and success.