I love the idea that our everyday world is overlaid with (or better yet, haunted by) a vibrant, fictive universe of characters and storylines, spin-offs and syndications. And so, apparently, does Dan Meth, whose Pop-Cultural Charts series maps much more than the geography of TV sitcoms. These maps are also, to be sure, a blueprint for the cultural imagination, an x-ray of our shared phantasmagoric milieu.
Like the thousands of nymphs and demi-gods that peppered the landscapes of antiquity, each with their own affectations, stories, and symbols, the TV shows that populate our cities with a different kind of legend constitute a pantheon of their own — one that’s proving to be as extensive, interwoven, and diverse as the myths of old. That we claim to have no place for magic in our realism is, perhaps, just one of the lies we tell our selves to make possible the pervasive presence of our own living mythology.
NYC Sitcom Map
USA Sitcom Map
UK TV & Radio Map
