While most television sitcoms to date had been mostly family- or coworker-driven, none of the Seinfeld characters are related by blood or employed by the same organization; in fact, many characters were not employed at all. Like the self-parodying "show within a show" episodes of year four, Seinfeld was perhaps, more than other sitcoms, a "show about nothing." This is because the episodes' plots concerned themselves not with huge events or comical situations, but instead focused on the minutiae annoyances and petty discussions of real life, such as waiting in line at the movies, going to eat, buying a suit and so on.

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