15 years of The Office and popularity among fans
By: Julia Barroso
Tags: Journalis, Muckumentary, Reddit, Datajournalism, The Office

The TV show has more fans in the Reddit community than other comedies

“Would I rather be feared of loved? Easy. Both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.” Michael Scott’s line, Steve Carell’s character, is one of the most remembered by fans of The Office. The American adaptation turned 15 in March this year and aired four years after the original, British, created by Ricky Gervais.

The series shows a paper company being filmed for a documentary. The mockumentary style, or pseudo-documentary, brings proximity to the fictional story, allowing almost direct contact between audience and characters, who often speak directly to the camera. With its nine seasons, Greg Daniels’s version continues successful and has over a million fans in its community on the social network Reddit, surpassing other famous comedy series.

The Office has a larger Reddit fan community than other comedy series

Reddit, created in 2005, is a forum-style website where you can create posts within groups, the subreddits. As shown above, The Office’s community is more popular than the award-winning Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and the tradicional Seinfeld and Friends, and this isn’t related to when the show was created nor its duration. To journalist Lucas Salgado, from Cine Pop, the British format with the American humor is what makes The Office unique. “Other importante factors are Steve Carell’s talent, a charismatic cast, a script that had space for all the characters to have their moment and the setting in a generic office, which easily generates identification by the spectator”, he adds.

Christmas party from the third season — “A Benihana Christmas” / Photo: NBC

After a decade and a half, the series’s popularity, for the journalist, is the characters’s fault. “The fan’s relationship with The Office is interesting, because you start by not enjoying all the characters. Dwight is just the bizarre guy, Michael is the clueless, Andy is the bore”. He highlights the role of Michael, the boss. “The character was quite modified after the first season, moving away from the original inspiration (David Brent, played by Ricky Gervais) and presenting himself as someone with a big heart. A great protagonist added to an inspired support cast ended up generating all this attachment and engagement with the series.”

Michael Scott is the head of the Scranton branch of the Dunder Mifflin paper company. Even with responsibilities as a regional manager, he strives to be friendly with employees, always being relaxed even during working hours and prioritizing the personal side despite professional pressure. The character equivalent to his in the British version, David Brent, is considered unpleasant, while Michael’s slips are offset by his good intention.

Elói, known as Kromwulf on Reddit, is one of the fans who have Michael as a favorite character, mentioning Dwight, Andy and Creed next. For a long time, Elói saw memes and gifs of the characters on the internet, and that was a motivation to see the series. “I don’t even like TV shows, the only ones I’ve seen were Dexter and half of The Big Bang Theory, and then The Office”, he says, adding that the the only show community that he’s a part of on Reddit is r/DunderMifflin, for The Office.

With the same name as the paper company portrayed in the series, r/DunderMifflin proves Michael Scott’s relevance to the public. Present in seven of the nine seasons, in addition to a participation in the last episode, his time of direct interaction with the camera totals a little more than four hours. Creed, one of Elói’s favorites, is in sixth place considering the number of mentions in the community, despite adding approximately six minutes of interaction.

Michael is the most popular character on r/DunderMifflin and has the most direct interactions with camera

After Michael, Dwight, Jim and Pam are the most mentioned on Reddit, each with more than one hour of contact with the public, followed by Andy, with forty minutes, although he only joined the series on third season. Creed, beloved by the public, shows the weight of characters seen as secondary, who are successful even with less screen time.

The big regular cast was one of The Office’s impacts on the world of TV shows, in addition to the shooting style. Lucas Salgado believes that the series ushered in a new era of great comedies by NBC, followed by 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation. “The mockumentary style is undoubtedly popularized by the series, and it’s present also in Parks and Modern Family. But more than that. The very notion of a series with numerous important characters ends up gaining strength because of The Office. Today, we can see that in works in shows like Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”

In addition to being a fake documentary, Rayara Lassance thinks that another reason for the fame of the series is the mockery to the classic patterns of American characters. She saw the entire series once, but is always reviewing the episodes. “It’s difficult to choose just one, but I think the classic Dwight setting fire to the office and dinner at Michael’s house with Jan”, she says about her favorite episodes, Stress Relief, from season five, and Dinner Party, from the fourth.

Along with the third, these two seasons are Lucas Cavalcante’s favorites. He only saw the series this year. The recommendation was from his best friend, but he waited a long time to watch. “I tried to see it a few times before, but, as it wasn’t on Netflix, it was a little bit complicated. After I subscribed to Amazon Prime, I got to see everything, and I really saw that it was very good. Today it is one of my favorite series.”

Lucas chooses as the best character the person responsible for the fire in Stress Relief. “Without a doubt, my favorite character is Dwight. I think it’s just great, the characterization of the character, all the satire around him…” Dwight Schrute is the assistant to the regional manager and the main salesman of the team, besides owning a beet farm. His office rival is Jim Halpert, who is a talented salesman but without ambition. The pranks between the two are an importante part of the series.

In the first episode, Jim puts Dwight’s stapler in jelly / Photo: NBC

Michael, Dwight and Jim are considered by Lucas the main characters, along with Pam Beesly, the branch receptionist. “But after Michael left, Andy gained relevance, occupied that space”, he adds. Michael left at the end of the seventh season.

Creed, despite few interactions with the camera, is among popular group on Reddit

Although no character has occupied, in terms of interaction with the public, Michael’s place, the participation of Jim, Dwight and Andy increased in the eighth season. Steve Carell’s departure resulted in the participation of actors such as Will Ferrell, Jim Carrey, James Spader and Catherine Tate, the latter two being incorporated into the cast. Between the special appearances, Lucas highlights Robert California, the character of James Spader, and Karen, played by Rashida Jones, who also acts in Parks and Recreation, a TV show that Lucas is watching because of the same filming style, and was created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, screenwriters from The Office.

Daniels is also the creator of Space Force, with Steve Carell, and Upload, which includes science fiction. Schur, known for acting in The Office Dwight’s cousin Mose, is creator of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Good Place. Like Schur, Mindy Kaling was a screenwriter for the series and was better known as a character — she played Kelly Kapoor. Mindy recently created the series Never Have I Ever, which tells the story of an American teenager from an Indian family.

Other actors in the series have outstanding projects. Steve Carell recently participated in the series The Morning Show, in addition to Space Force. Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey, Pam and Angela in The Office, launched at the end of 2019 The Office Ladies podcast, in which they discuss the episodes and backstage information. John Krasinski, Jim, directed and acted in A Quiet Place, a horror movie released in 2018 that has a continuation planned for this year, and is doing Some Good News on Youtube during the quarantine, with the proposal to bring only happy news.

The cast met virtually on Some Good News to celebrate the wedding of two fans, made official by Krasinski. To the sound of “Forever”, by Chris Brown, actors and actresses imitated the dance performed at Pam and Jim’s wedding in the show, which Lucas considers one of the most striking musical moments.

Scene happens in the sixth season / Video: NBC

For Elói, the musical highlight is Andy playing “I Will Remember You”, by Sarah McLachlan, while Rayara prefers the Stress Relief scene where Michael sings “I Will Survive”, by Gloria Gaynor, mistaking it for “Stayin’ Alive”, by Bee Gees.

In 202 moments, music was a fundamental part of the series. With 10 originals and 29 parodies, the characters are seen as composers of songs like Diwali Song, 9,986,000 Minutes, That One Night, Lazy Scranton and even a jingle for Dunder Mifflin. The band that appears the most is The Police, with five songs played by Kevin’s band during Phyllis’s wedding. “Car Wash”, by Rose Royce, is the most repeated song — appears three times. The musical talents of Michael, Dwight, Andy, Creed, Kevin and Darryl are evident, but all characters have their own participation, either in one of the company’s Christmas parties, in a wedding or farewell. For The Office fans, this is a key piece in the legacy of the series.