Every profession has that one piece of semi-mainstream media that gets everything correct about them even though it's absolutely not the norm. Doctors have Scrubs, lawyers have My Cousin Vinny, hackers have Hackers. What's yours?
Midsommar for grad students
oh man, i'm terrified to know the answer to this lmao. people say this about a beautiful mind but i've never seen it myself
are you referring to govt/defense contracting or mathematicianship more broadly
The Critic. Pop media representations of critics, being produced by people who often find themselves the subject of a critic's criticism, tend to be uncharitable, so it's nice to see a TV show that tries to empathize with the concerns critics tend to face ("That's what 'good''s for.").
The hacking felt a little too handwave-y in The Matrix, to be honest. And who has a landline telephone these days?
(yes I am joking)
Hitman 3 had an IT office where one dude was in business attire and his co-worker was in full-cozy PJs, complete with bunny slippers. No one cares how you dress so long as you fix their shit and are gone by the time the clients show up.
IDK if this is mainstream enough but I think Connie Willis's time-travelling Oxford historian series captures the stressful but aimless activity of being a PhD student very well. Especially To Say Nothing of the Dog.
I'm barely done with the first season but Silicon Valley hits way too close to home in ways I cannot describe and I'm afraid it'll be even worse/better as the show goes on.
it's painfully accurate about the nature of software development, outside of the VC hijinks
Mike Judge gets software development way more accurately than anyone else. Even Office Space is accurate to how non silicon valley tech works out like.
specific to Australian lawyers, they're fond of the ABC black comedy Rake
holy shit you mean rake? from rake? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CBICjTeT-I
I actually went to see this with my high school marching band and i think we all agreed
we used to watch it in high school music class all the time and 15 years later it still gets the whole thing better than anything else i've seen.
Misread "profession" as "person" and started trying to think about the answer for someone like me (mental health disability),
Closest I can think of is not exactly mainstream, and doesn't quite get everything right, (notably, I strongly disagree with the thesis "these people aren't actually disabled, just cut them off and they'll shape up when they face the prospect of having to go without food") But man, Welcome To The NHK really understands a few things about what it's like to have severe social anxiety.
My dad is an experienced sailor and has variously crewed and skippered on a few boat deliveries as a side hustle, and he insists CAPTAIN RON (1992) is dead-on accurate to his experience of owner-on-board deliveries, at least in terms of vibes and power dynamics (obviously not so much in specific sailing detail)
yeah it's hackers. with every year i am becoming more and more life the characters, thankfully
Radio station intern?
to the family and friends of cohost user Shel(...) (/j)
Good lord. Yeah suddenly the Night Vale comparison feels less comedic than I first read it as.
Down Periscope nails what it feels like to be a part of a submarine crew: boredom, fear, goofing off, and extreme competence when (and only when) it matters most.
I wonder if The West Wing is an inverse example, where the show affected how people in politics now treat politics.
you already mentioned Hackers (1995) which you know i'm all about, but for a more contemporary pick i think Mr. Robot stayed pretty down to earth in the first couple of seasons before it really turned to speculative fiction.
