The O.C. - Seth Cohen Was Wrong About Everything (& That's Okay) | Explained

the OC Seth Cohen is an iconic heartthrob of the early 2000s he was cute and awkward and always had a hilarious quip ready to go oh I get it I'm I'm just here for the comic relief but as the show celebrates the 20th anniversary of the end of its Mega hit first season we can look back and realize that Seth was actually wrong about a lot his mindset hindered him in so many ways but many of his faults were also what made him so relatable to many at the time so let's take a look back at Seth Cohen what he got wrong about life and why his growth was so important for him and us well this should be great really great and not at all awkward many viewers dreamed about dating Seth Cohen at the time but the reality is that he was a very bad boyfriend even before he started dating anyone he was clearly giving nice guy Vibes even naming his boat after summer Roberts who he was too afraid to even talk to and then when he does start talking to girls things don't get much better do I force a confrontation or do I just continue to be wh and passive aggressive until she realizes What A Catch I am it's not necessarily surprising that a teen who never even really had a proper conversation with a girl prior to when we meet him on the show much less dated anyone isn't immediately a great boyfriend but Seth's bad relationship Deeds go far beyond just regular figuring things out so much of Seth's behavior in relationships is full of red flags looking back from love bombing to negging and his biggest problem seems to be that he likes the idea of getting what he wants but but has no idea how to actually deal with it once he has it Seth had been pining over summer since they were kids he saw her as the Pinnacle of hot girl he could never hope to get but when his life gets shaken up by the addition of bad boy Ryan Atwood Who falls for Marissa Cooper Summer's best friend all of a sudden he has an inn and while summer is initially not interested as they spend more time together she does start to fall for him but once they do finally get together it's not happily ever after because Seth can't help but screws things up part of this is due to his insecurity which we'll unpack in a sec but a big part of it is his ego even though he says he loves summer he clearly sees her as beneath him despite all my best judgments I cannot not like her and once they get together it's like that's when he realizes other girls are out there and he wants to explore when transfer student Anna shows up and shares some of Seth's nerdier interests he can't decide between the two I have no idea I don't know no fale has ever really offered me a uh a choice per se I really only know how to handle rejection and ridicule I really could handle on ridicu but instead of taking a step back and figuring out what he wants he decides to just string them both along he's indecisive Because deep down he thinks he should be able to have everything he wants why should he have to choose just one girl I just want to say one little thing in my defense which is you can't really blame me for wanting the company of either of you do it's not inconceivable that a teen who had gone from Outcast nerd to having two pretty girls interested in him in the span of a school semester would get caught up in how nice it is to feel wanted but the fact that he then chooses to continue to string them both along to feed his own ego is a big problem summer Anna Seth Seth often goes with what's easiest rather than doing the actual work to get what he wants he spent all of that time pining after summer instead of actually trying to talk to her and then when he's torn between summer and Anna he makes the choice not based on desire but just on who happens to show up after he and Anna break up then he decides to go back to Summer the whole reason that we broke up is cuz for me he always been you summer but even after his Declaration of love it's not smooth sailing for the couple they seem to finally be in a good place but when Ryan decides to go back to Chino Seth takes off on his boat for 3 months leaving summer nothing but a note he was understandably shaken by Ryan's departure and is after all only a teen trying to deal with a lot of big emotions but to totally go summer after they finally started to make things work was not cool when he comes back summer has rightfully started moving on and Seth does too dating Alex but even though he's seeing someone else he can't stand the fact that summer is with someone else and so of course he wedges his way into a relationship with Zach until it's ruined and she's free to come back to him you would think that after all of this Seth would finally get it together and be the dreamy boyfriend he should be but in reality he continues to let his attitude and poor choices cause problems in their relationship he often puts Sumer down and when she gets a better score on the SATs and accept it to Brown while he doesn't he can't even fathom it as much as he might have desired summer he always saw her as beneath him so realizing that she was actually the smart capable one the whole time totally shook his world but thankfully Seth does show growth by the end of the series once he realizes how important Summer's activist work is to her and how great she is at it he pushes her to pursue her dreams even if it means they'll be a part I just want to give you room to keep doing what you're doing cuz I think it's pretty amazing so if you don't hear from me for a while it's not because I don't love you it's because I do Seth was a stereotypical hipster nerd he felt like everyone looked down on him for the things he liked while simultaneously looking down on everyone else for their tastes to be fair comic books video games and Indie music weren't as widely accepted back then I'm sweating to death driving 10 m an hour I'm like a Rick Shaw listening to this music hey do not insult death C it's like one guitar and a whole lot of complaining and many of his nerdier interests were seen as something for only the dweebies of dweebs so when you lost your virginity I was I was playing Magic the Gathering you still play Magic yeah but not as much but Seth was constantly prickly about matters of taste always assuming everyone else's must be worse than his and if someone had the same interest or knowledge it must be some kind of trick his assumptions led him to keep up a wall that made it much more difficult for him to realize that he actually had a lot of common ground with all of these people he felt were so different from him a LaVine doesn't counted Punk oh yeah well what about the cramps stiff little fingers The Clash Sex Pistols I listen to the same music Marissa Cooper thankfully as he begins opening up to people he comes around to the idea that he can have friends and that he can relate to his PE in surprising ways who is this no one I'm not no one Princess Sparkle what do you want I think she just Captain out's typ he also learns that all of those people he thought were impossibly cool also have weird quirks and insecurities just like him you weren't the only virgin in the room there's someone else in the room like like filming us me jackass I I felt like I had this reputation to uphold and I figured you'd think less of me or something no are you kidding not at all want more of the take and to have a say in what we cover check out our exclusive members only series on our patreon where you get to vote on what we cover next Seth was an awkward teen who had a hard time making friends oh hey do you want to play Grand Theft Auto it's pretty cool you can like steal cars and not that that's cool or uncool I don't know but just like with his love life once he does have friends we realized that the problem wasn't always just everyone else because he had shut himself off from his Pierce for so long he had convinced himself that he was a loner because all of his peers were too cool to hang out with him but the reality is that he never really tried reaching out and making connections either I've lived next door to you forever and you've never done or said anything to me oh my God you're the one who never talks to me you think you're so much better than everyone I do and even with how much he resented his own Outsider status he had no problem making other people feel left out he was so focused on himself that he often didn't even really realize that he was treating people the way he complained everyone else was treating him even though Ryan was usually struggling with significantly bigger issues Seth always wanted the focus to be on him Ryan became kind of like his part-time therapist and guide through normal people world but Seth often forgot that friendship should be reciprocal so do you want to tell me about your night or since I already heard about it we just Skip to My breakup with Anna but with Ryan's help he was able to grow into a better if not perfect friend that's cuz no one lived there as funny as you hey so we finally agree I'm the funny one well look at that it looked like we all learned some valuable lessons is Thanksgiving Seth was constantly making jokes to hide his true feelings or avoid difficult conversations this is something most of us do to some degree and it also led to some great lines about my best friend Princess Sparkle was freaking outa dumbass uh I always get those two confused they have really shiny hair but it was also a major hindrance to his ability to form real deep relationships and grow as a person he leaned on his sense of humor as a crutch to the point where he kind of couldn't turn it off how can you even joke about this cuz I don't know I have to I'm not emotionally equipped to actually process this information and this is because for a long time trying to make a joke with things was the only way he could deal with all of the parts of his life that he was unhappy with he couldn't figure figure out how to change things so he tried to just laugh it all off this habit also has a Sharper Edge though because he also often used his jokes to be rather rude to the people around him under the guise of light humor but then of course was always afraid to be honest when it really mattered but once he stopped using his Keen sense of humor only as a shield he was also able to use it to uplift others and build connections how do you feel about Newport charity events huh I hate that M me too so what do you say you come with me and one will hang out well just quietly more people and to be fair to Seth sometimes humor was the only answer to the ridiculous 2000 soap opera plot lines he was living through me Marissa we could be related I don't know I can't even do that math but the real kicker is Julie Cooper my grandma my Grandma wears ugs think about it Seth's self-centeredness and insecurity made a pretty bad combination for him and everyone else around him I get it I deserve it he very seldom stopped to think about how his actions might affect anyone else he seemed to tell himself it was because what he did didn't really matter to anyone else but really it was just because he was always the most concerned with himself so I didn't even get a review at all huh not that I would read Mountain Press but I mean nothing involving thumbs or uh stars or Seth's Focus was always on Seth's feelings Above All Else putting yourself first certainly isn't always a bad thing but Seth outright ignored everyone else's wants and needs to the detriment of his relationships with them Ryan Ryan Ryan Ryan you sleep yeah oh okay sorry I'm going to let you go back to sleep okay and his self-absorbed nature meant that he often didn't even notice he was doing it and if he did he didn't really see it as a bad thing I just need to talk about me for like several more hours at least I you didn't do that anymore no that was the new Seth conen I'm back Ryan cooh classic red white and mean come on he had no problem being dishonest for his own gain even if it means lying to the people he's closest to though he often finds a way to justify it like when he just doesn't tell summer the truth that his comic book publisher with an androgynous name is a woman who he's flirty with he's also careless with things that are important to those around him that he doesn't feel invested in personally like when he accidentally burnt down the Newport group building during his weed addiction Arc despite his many many faults Seth became a beloved character because the good person underneath always managed to shine through oh I got you something no no no no no no no no we had an agree yeah but this is different this is a requirement I know it's a bit minty but uh you know we all have one so we just stop and while some of his quirks might have been grading he was a pretty realistic representation of a loner teen nerd of that era well except for the fact that he lowkey looked like a model but I mean it was Orange County we make a good team I'm the brains you're the brawn hey how come you're the brains I'm the one who talked us back into that club I'm sorry I'm the brains you can be the beauty yeah that's exactly right you're the beauty he's a bron on the brains sure he was immature but he was literally a child given that he was played by grown adult Adam Brody it can be easy to forget that Seth was only 16 at the start of the show we're being St looking back at any of us at 16 we quickly realized that we were wrong about so many things and that's the beauty of growing up you get the chance to learn from your mistakes and change for the better and over the course of the OC's Four Seasons Seth started doing just that he was never the perfect guy but he did evolve into a better if not less annoying person careful lady my girlfriend's going to be here any second shut up hey you just punched me my baby's back that's the take click here to watch the video we think you'll love or here to check out a whole playlist of awesome content don't forget to 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Channel: The Take

Views: 17,683

Keywords: the take, video essay, video essays, explained, The O.C., the oc, seth cohen, the oc seth, the oc seth cohen, seth cohen explained, the oc explained, seth and summer, seth and ryan, seth and marissa, the oc seth and summer, adam brody, ryan atwood, summer roberts, marissa cooper, the oc anaylsis, the oc essay, the oc video essay, OC, seth cohen worst moments, dating, loner, friendship, love, personal growth, character growth, the oc seth worst moments, seth cohen and anna

Id: ynve8YVTDBw

Length: 13min 25sec (805 seconds)

Published: Sun May 05 2024