People who watched the show "The Big Bang Theory", what is your opinion on it?

I tried to watch it around 2012 and couldn't stand it

I binged all seasons and it cracked me up to watch the cast go from eating a ton of food on screen to just gesturing with pickles and working out 😂

Nerd humor. I liked it.

It ain't no Mike & Molly, though. That show was HILARIOUS, and unapologetically for adults only. Really great show.

It started out great but ended up just being mostly sex related humour, not science.

I like it. It's dumb fun, but it's funny and I like to laugh.

oh boy, i do love me some disgusting amounts of misogony such as that show... shows.

It was OK for time it was out. Then they made the young Sheldon crap and now I can't even watch reruns

By extension, Young Sheldon features a not at all realistic genius kid, who's arrogant and having zero clue in socialising, but his attitude is extremely confident. I don't find the protagonist likable at all.

i liked young sheldon more but i still watch big bang theory today as a guilty pleasure. it's not perfect by a long shot but it's fun. i preferred sheldon scenes more than leonard or anyone else though.

I loved it for the first 3 seasons. Then they turn it into the usual couples sitcom and lost all its appeal.

I liked the dynamic of having all main characters "fail" in life. Penny failed as an actress, Leonard failed in dating Penny, Howard failed as a playboy, Raj failed talking to women and Sheldon failed at social integration. They were all adorable losers that had fun while losing. For me it kinda was giving a lot of hope, like you don't have to succeed in life to have a good time.

Then they made them all winners, they all became rich, and achieve all their goals. And all hope was lost. And the message was "you better succeed in life" which was depressing.

Reddit trash for people with no standards.

As long as it's "safe", they'll eat it up.

followup question: what's your thoughts on The IT Crowd? because i have a friend who insists they are the same show, and i disagree but can't form a coherent argument as to why.

The IT Crowd is a show about a group of fools getting into ridiculous situations at work. It’s a good laugh and has some classic moments. My partner doesn’t make or get tv/movie references, but even she can drop references from it into casual conversation.
Big Bang Theory is a bland comedy that wants to be much more than it is - relationship drama, social exploratory, situational comedy. But it tends to fail 90% of the time, and the closer it gets to ‘relationship drama’ the more grating it gets.
- Something I realized while reading this is that I can't think of any quotes from it. Besides "Bazinga", but that was designed to be intentionally annoying and then was used to mock the show.
  I can think of references to basically every other sitcom I've seen, and I can vaguely remember some scenes from BBT, but nothing quotable. My spouse liked it, so I've seen every episode at least once, but it was honestly pretty forgettable.
  My verdict was originally "not bad". But maybe being forgettable was it's best quality.
I haven't watched much BBT, so grain of salt, open to being called out for mistakes.
I'd say The IT Crowd was more centered about a workplace, even if many of the jokes are about their romances, hobbies and personal life, and even if BBT had workplace episodes. The central set of IT Crowd is their basement office, the central set of BBT is an apartment. And I don't think that's a trivial difference, it changes the kind of humor and how relatable much of it is.
Also, a big gripe about BBT was the laugh track. It's normal for sitcoms to have canned laughter, IT Crowd had it too, but BBTs is uncomfortable. Like trk said in another reply, "If there was no laugh track you wouldn’t even know jokes are happening." There are plenty of BBT No Laugh Track edits on YouTube and it highlights how much better it could be without the forced laughter.
Finally, BBT is a lot more US humor than British humor, not to say that as point in itself, but I feel like it makes the BBT feel to me a lot more like "laughing at nerds" despite that being a major factor in BBT. I also feel that Moss is played more wacky and exaggerated than (say) Sheldon, who certainly has strange peculiarities but is played more subtly or realistically, which I feel makes their character more mocking than absurd parody.
(also I just like the theme music much more)
- interestingly it crowd was apparently filmed with an audience.

I was there for the premiere... Season 1, Episode 1... I laughed because they referenced funny nerd things! It's a sitcom that I'll get inside jokes on! Oh boy this is going to be amazing!

By episode 3 I realised it was not going to be amazing. By episode 6 I was out.

I have no idea how many sessions they are up to now but if I happen to stumble upon it I legitimately can't work out what's meant to be funny. If there was no laugh track you wouldn't even know jokes are happening.

Pretty sure it ended years ago

I couldn't even complete one episode. It was so dumb.

It fucking sucks. Also, i'm tired of being compared to Sheldon Cooper. I'm surprised there aren't more fellow autists shit talking this show.

It made people with either mental or emotional or social dysfunction the butt of pretty much every joke.

Haha, he's awkward.

Haha, he has a weird family dynamic.

Blegh.

It gave the audience the opportunity to laugh at ostensibly intelligent and educated people for enjoying nerd culture.

I honestly think it's an abomination.

I like to describe it as lowest common denominator humour. It’s low brow at best

I watched it for a time because other friends and coworkers did and it gave us something to talk about. But, generally speaking, I found the characters to be kinda awful people and while on the surface seemed like my friends and myself, they were at best poor approximations. The show was very clearly making fun of them most of the time, filled with horrible laugh tracks that prompt the viewer.. I eventually just couldn't stand it anymore and left. Honestly, I had forgotten about this show.

Around that same era there was a show called Community that was full of weird people and great storrytelling and was damn near the opposite of the Big Bang. Community is a show I still rewatch from time to time.

I second that. Community was great. The absurdity of the episode with the ABBA soundtrack still makes me laugh.

I refer to it as geek culture black face.

As a nerd I loathe that show, it’s vapid. You nailed it.
- I'm a Nerodivergent geek, I had lots of people tell me "you will love this show" so I watched some and now I wonder how those people really see me. So that's kinda fun.
“Nerdface” I have called it.
Wow, that's incredibly succinct and accurate.
This is a great way to put it! Totally agree

The autism representation is what happens when a writer has never met another person before.

Fairly accurate sociopath representation though.

The "laughs" all felt from the outside. There was very little humor aimed at the people who would self identify as nerds and way more "haha look at these nerds and how quirky they are" set ups. Sure there are misogynist asshole nerds but usually they need to grow beyond that to find friends and partners. As far as I could tell none of them did. Sheldon and Howard were still super sexist, Leonard was still passive and whiny, but the story pushed forward foisting "perfect matches" on them.

Throughout the whole thing there was very little actual geek humor, and it felt denigrating to actual nerds.

The show isn’t for nerds. It’s for people who believe they are a nerd because they like sci-fi
- I've always maintained it's for non-nerds who want to laugh at cultures they'll never understand. For convenience, all known nerd stuff is crammed into all characters.
It's fun to watch clips where people removed the laugh track. The "jokes" really fall flat.

If a show requires a laugh track to tell its viewers when to laugh, then it lacks substance enough to cause it without.

I absolutely agree. You can find some parts of the show with the laugh track removed on YouTube, and it's amazing to realise how unfunny the jokes really are.
I don't agree in general - I like the trad sitcom "sort of live" approach, as in Cheers and early Red Dwarf, but it is definitely used as you say far too often. The fecking Flintstones used a laugh track - an animated show.
But search YouTube for "Big Bang Theory without Laugh Track" and you'll see a dew examples of how shit most of the humour actually is