both

Friends is horrible, watch Happy Endings if you want the same premise with funny jokes.

Seinfeld was also not good but did introduce a lot of tv tropes, so Larry David and Curb are where the funny is made there without the laugh track.

I thought both were okay. Not great but not awful. Both aged rather poorly though. But that’s not unusual for sitcoms. Most of them do.

I watched Seinfeld and Frasier when I was in university and I absolutely loved both of those shows, despite how the leading actors have turned out to be.

Sometimes it’s okay to live with a bit of cognitive dissonance.

Edit: Friends on the other hand was trite and full of stolen jokes, and mostly liberal nonsense.

I’m going to give a non-answer here, but spend some words pointing out that there is an entire TV Trope explicitly named after the phenomenon contributing to much of the current-day Seinfeld hate, namely that it feels trite and predictable only when viewed through the lens of modernity. Seinfeld is unfunny as we decry that it’s all been done before, forgetting that it’s only been done before because Seinfeld did it first and lots of others imitated in the wake of its popularity. In its era it was actually truly groundbreaking, in a way that Friends definitely was not.

Seinfeld (along with Married… With Children) was the original raunchy sitcom that broke the genre free from bland family friendly predictability and opened up the possibility of one being entertainment aimed squarely and indeed only at adults. The core cast of Seinfeld are all terrible people, in retrospect probably because Jerry Seinfeld himself was writing from what he knew, where nobody learns the important lesson at the end of the episode on purpose. Sex, relationships, and even failed relationships were openly discussed. There is no central family unit, and every family we are shown in any detail (mainly Jerry’s and especially George’s) are highly dysfunctional. Before it, the concept of an episode having A and B plotlines that intersect and eventually entangle with each other hadn’t been done, even though this is such a staple that it’s outright expected of any show today. It had a deliberately misanthropic sense of humor that was the perfect fit for the cynical point in history in which it occupied.

In a way Friends is aspirational, an idealized imagining of a hypothetical urban lifestyle that the viewer may hope to achieve even if they don’t personally identify with it. Seinfeld, conversely, is an outright freakshow. You are on the outside looking in at these vain and deceitful people much like a jar full of scorpions someone’s just shaken so they’ll fight. And you’re glad to be on the outside of it, because you really don’t want to be them. But there is a certain bile attraction to it nevertheless, a sort of twisted catharsis in that despite how horrible and selfish as the core cast may be they are also somehow able to live without remorse, speak without filters, and act out without consequences in ways that we only wish we could get away with. (The fact that they spout so many zingers and precipitate so many quotable moments probably also helps.)

Friends is worse for people who prefer Seinfeld, while Seinfeld is worse for people who prefer Friends.

Mystery solved. No need to thank me, everyone, it’s all in a day’s work.

Seinfeld has worse jokes, while Friends has worse characters. But Seinfeld has by far the worst personnel involved in the production.

Friends.

While Seinfeld is certainly overrated and hasn’t aged well, at least it had its memorable moments that still get talked about today (Mostly Kramer Hijinx, to be fair…)

• Kramer vs Kenny Rogers Roasters
• Kramer and the Rickshaw
• Soup Nazi
• 'They’re real…and they’re spectacilar"
• Mulva
• George saves the whale.

Just of the top of my head.

Friends, while popular, is ultimately forgettable generic sitcom crap. I struggle to think of any actual memorable moments other than “Pivot”

I think seinfeld is worse. I tried to like it.

• Friends is pretty easy to understand, seinfeld feels like it’s somehow appealing to a smaller audience.
• Friends has a bigger cast and bigger sets - Seinfeld uses a tiny, though realistic, apartment, and the diner they go to feels more closed in. I don’t watch sitcoms for the realism so i think friends wins here because it’s better thought out.
• Seinfeld struggles to control his smile and laughing, and it makes it seem like he’s a comedian constantly aware that he’s just playing a character or acting out skits he wrote. I think Friends has the benefit of the actors not, usually, writing their stuff. Also in Friends they eventually developed brilliant talent at riffing/ad-libbing, something which Matt Perry demonstrated from the get go and helped carry the show with.

Lemmy sure is a tough crowd.

As one that remembers watching NBC “Must See TV” Thursday nights in the 90’s, back then, Friends was more approachable as a twenty-something that identified somewhat with the idea that it’s ok to be quirky, laughable, and fun.

Now, I prefer Seinfeld. Say what you will about the cast, the show’s darker take wears better on the post 9/11 world.

It’s easy to pick on one or the other now, but having lived the era, and the era of TV that led to it, both shows made more sense back then.

Two Broke Girls: “Hold my beer…”

Trigger warning: criticism of popular media

Friends is an extremely boring and formulaic show, it just has handsome people in it and sometimes the ladies don’t wear bras. I much prefer Seinfeld, which was in a way revolutionary for sitcoms, and it can still be enjoyed today (the laugh track is unfortunate though). It definitely inspired It’s Always Sunny, another great show, whilst Friends inspired How I Met Your Mother… and you can draw your own conclusions from that. 😅

The one with laugh tracks.

Oh.

The one with a laugh track.