Season 1 in Review: Jesse

[hanfastolfe]

Oh, Jesse. You sorry-ass loser and slacker, you. :(

At 24, he looks and even still acts like a big kid, like a teenager who never quite grew up all the way. But he's basically a decent guy, even here, trying to make something better of himself without quite knowing how to get there. He applies for jobs wearing very nice suits (rawr!), but he gets

Comments

[diamondtopaz]

I think the reason Jesse is so popular a character is because he is very iconic of our generation. The "Occupy Wall Street" generation. Not saying we're all addicts or drug dealers, of course. I mean our demographic as a whole has been handed a pretty crappy lot in life. We were promised that if we got degrees, we'd walk off campus able to write our own ticket in the world. Half a decade later, most of us are still scraping by on minimum wage jobs with a heaping side portion of student loan debt, wondering where we screwed up. I bet I'm not the only one for whom that scene struck a chord in Season 1, where Jesse tries to get a decent sales job but gets brushed off into "advertising." We like Jesse because he's one of us; always feeling inadequate in spite of our best intentions.
(By the way, to anybody who just called me "whiny entitled kid" in their head: you're one of the Walter Whites of the world. Cheers. :) )

[hanfastolfe]

Speaking of, have you heard of the "Old Economy Steve" meme?

[diamondtopaz]

*Googles* I have now. Seems pretty apropos.