Recap / Community S 5 E 08 App Development And Condiments

Five MeowMeowBeenz.

Dean Pelton invites two designers to Greendale to beta-test their new social networking application, "MeowMeowBeenz". What starts as a fun social interaction of ranking classmates turns into an all-out class war as Greendale students compete for the highest score. Jeff and Shirley battle for supremacy, while Britta rails against the very concept.

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The Community episode "App Development and Condiments" provides examples of:

• Absurdly Divided School: The introduction of a Fictional Social Network quickly causes vicious dystopic social stratification by their rating on said site, and a class war to ensue. The moral? Social Media Is Bad!
• Actor Allusion: Jeff doing a stand-up set in the finale is an allusion to Joel McHale being a successful stand-up comedian outside of his acting career.
• Actor IS the Title Character: The narrator in the tag notes that "Mitchell D. Hurwitz IS Koogler".
• Aerith and Bob: The bros with whom Jeff briefly curries favor:
  Jeff: So I'm like "That's two cups!" and she's like "What?" and I'm like "Two cups, balls back, tops OFF!"
  Bros: [Laughter]
  Jeff: All right ... [High-fiving them each in turn] Track, Mulch, Dave, Herpee, Clutch, Dirtmouth, Rope, Tinkles, Catwoman, Steve ... Keep it floppy. Haul it, ball it, never call it. Girls are objects!
  Bros: YEAH!!
  • "MeowMeowBeenz" was created by two guys named David and Bixil.
• Aesop Amnesia: Once more, Shirley has to learn that her competitive nature is hurtful to others. She obviously didn't learn from humiliating Jeff as a child or Troy in P.E.E. class.
• Affectionate Parody: Of futuristic Science Fiction movies like Things to Come and those set in a Dystopia made in the 1970s like Logan's Run, The Apple and Zardoz.
  • There's also some spoofing of The Hunger Games going on, especially with the Fives' fashions, and the talent contest the Fives stage to give the Twos and Threes hope and help them "believe in the system."
  • The trailer for "Koogler" in The Tag is a spoof of raunchy 1980s college comedies.
• Angrish: Hickey is reduced to this after the two developers introduce the app.
  "You know...I could- I fought for this country. And I know you don't get to pick and choose the parts you fight for— but I know—"
• Anything but That!: Jordan Blum, the Three who juggled devil sticks at the talent show fails to impress Shirley and is voted down to a 1 which means banishment:
  Jordan: No! Not the Outlands! Please!
  • Before being taken away one of the guards tries to make a speech about how "The Fives have spoken" but fumbles the words which causes him to be downvoted to a One and banished as well:
  "What?! No please! I'm just not good at public speaking!"
• Bad Review Threat: Due to how MeowMeowBeenz uses a weighted system where higher-ranked people have greater influence on ratings, students who have five out of five Beenz can easily coerce other students by threat of a low review, such as when Shirley knocks Vicky down to a one after she ranks Shirley a four.
• Bait-and-Switch: Britta expects that when Jeff throws other numbers under the bus for his comedy routine that he is gaining Acquired Situational Narcissism. Nope; as soon as he reaches the fives sanctuary, he throws himself and Shirley under the bus by revealing their equal hypocrisy, and judging by his expression he feels that it's Worth It.
• Bald of Evil: The Fives' security guards (which include Leonard) are all bald.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: Britta spends much of the episode fighting against the ruthless corrupt Fives that are ruling the system. When the Fives are taken down, Britta promptly installs herself as a dictator far more brutal than the fives ever were, simply because she enjoys her power.
• Beta Bitch: Annie becomes this for Shirley, when the college divides into groups she becomes the fives pet four/personal assistant.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Shirley, who gets rated a Five by acting nice to people but then uses the status it brings her to manipulate, bully and punish people who displease her. Noted by Jeff:
  Annie: Shirley's a five.
  Jeff: [Suspicious] How?
  Annie: She's nice to people, Jeff. You know Shirley.
  [After Shirley manipulates everyone into reducing Vicki to a One]
  Jeff: Yeah. I do know Shirley.
• Blatant Lies:
  • Shirley claiming that she loves her Four rating from Vicki. In a very loud voice. Twice.
  • Hicks claiming it was his birthday, eight days straight.
• Bread and Circuses: The Fives hold a talent show for the Twos and Threes to "help them believe in the system."
• The Cameo: Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz as "Koogler".
  • Steve Agee and Brian Posehn from The Sarah Silverman Program as "David" and "Bixil", the designers of "MeowMeowBeenz".
  • Tim & Eric from Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! and Jen Kirkman from Chelsea Lately and After Lately are the Fours who harass Britta and later are the band that plays music at the Fives' "Fancy Future Dance".
• Camp Gay: The Four who thought that Jeff and Britta were in love.
• Canned Orders over Loudspeaker: The Dean's announcements over the intercom gradually become creepy fascistic propaganda slogans.
  The Dean: Tranquility is advancement. A happy Three is a future Four.
• Chekhov's Gun: Jeff and Annie note early in the episode that they inexplicably take Britta more seriously when she's got mustard on her lip. Later, Britta takes advantage of this to get people to do whatever she says by having mustard on her lip at all times.
• Color-Coded Castes: Once the rating-based social system really takes root, members start dressing in outfits of specific colors according to their score: Ones live outside the school like outcasts, Twos dress in beige workclothes and do menial labor, Threes dress in black with grey stripes and serve as guards, Fours dress in varying bright colors such as blue, green and orange, and Fives dress in white robes.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  Abed: I don't want to be a Five. I was happy as a Three. I'm miserable.
  Shirley: Ahhh, Abed. You're so humble.
  [Everyone gives him five MeowMeowBeenz]
  Abed: ...You people are monsters.
  • Also when Shirley tries to manipulate Chang into thinking Jeff's promotion was a mistake and fails.
    Shirley: I'm glad you don't think making Jeff a Five was a mistake like everybody else. I believe in taking risks.
    Chang: Yeah, Jeff's really cool.
• Commie Land: Britta's short-lived regime at the end. She's even made up to resemble Che Guevara.
• Control Freak: Shirley and Jeff's conflict is essentially driven by the fact that they're both this.
  • Britta briefly becomes one when she seizes power as the "Mother of Ones".
• Crapsaccharine World: Attempted, by the Fives, who want to give the lower numbers some entertainment and belief in the system, to prevent potential rebellions. It ultimately fails, however, when Britta inspires a "Review-lution" among them, replacing the Oligarchy of the Fives with a dictatorial autocratic regime, led by her.
• Crapsack World: Greendale becomes this after just eight days of the "MeowMeowBeenz" app beta test.
• Crowd Chant: When Jeff makes a five in the talent show, the whole crowd chants "Re-view, re-view meow meow meow meow meow!"
• Crystal Spires and Togas: The "Fives" all wear white robes and decorated the study room with crystals.
• A Day in the Limelight: This is the only Shirly-focused episode of season 5.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Shirley manipulates everyone to reduce Vicki to a One just because she gave Shirley a Four.
  • The Bald of Evil guard who's bad at public speaking gets voted down and dragged away.
• Drunk with Power: Shirley starts to become this only a few days into the app beta test, using her Five rating to get others to low-rate people she's displeased with like Vicki. Becomes full-blown by day eight with her and the Fives running the campus. Britta becomes this after she leads the revolution against the Fives.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Mostly everybody realizes that Britta has a point about the MeowMeowBeenz system and follow her lead. But only when she has mustard on her face.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Jeff turns out to be really sincere about how the app is turning people into monsters. After he dethrones Shirley, he tells everyone that the developers used them and tore them apart for a test and are now selling the app, which has five stars.
  • Abed at first goes along with the app because he can understand it. Even he, however, gets disturbed by how superficial and passive-aggressive the fives are and begs to be demoted.
• The Exile: People rated with just one "MeowMeowBeen" are banished to the "Outlands": outside the buildings on campus which has been strewn with trash and barb wire. Jeff and Shirley wind up there too.
• Extremely Short Timespan:
  • Simultaneously inverted and played straight. It takes only eight days for the "MeowMeowBeenz" App to completely devolve Greendale into a pseudo-futuristic, dystopian wasteland, but students and faculty have a habit of taking trivial things and blowing them up to Serious Business proportions. A couple of games of Paintball Assassin and one game of "The Floor Is Lava" have transformed Greendale into chaotic landscapes before, but within just a few hours.
  • Played straight at the end, where Britta somehow manages to completely transform the school from the previous 1970s futuristic dystopia into a communist dictatorship with herself at the head in a matter of minutes:
    Jeff: Oh, Great Mother of Ones, Mustard-Faced Savior, there is still a Five hiding among us that has not been cleansed.
    Britta: [Scoffing] Impossible. All Fives were reduced to Ones in the Great Purge of About Two Minutes Ago.
• Fanservice: The four garb really does show off Jeff’s pecs and arms.
• Fan Disservice: Let's face it, nobody needed to see Star-Burns dressed as Sean Connery in Zardoz.
• Feedback Rule: When Jeff grabs the mike to do his stand-up routine, there's noticeable feedback coming from the speakers.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Day one of the test demonstrated that the Fives had more power since their vote meant more. Day two showed that the Threes wore specific colors and that the Fives had control over the AC.
  • Britta warned Jeff early on that he should know the real reason why he wanted to take down the system or he would fail before he started. Sure enough, his main goal wasn't to showcase the sham of the system but to take Shirley down and put himself at the top. This ended up with him and Shirley being demoted to Ones, but the system was left intact.
• Frat Bro:
  • Koogler, played by Mitch Hurwitz.
  • The students Jeff hangs out with to get a higher rating.
• Full-Circle Revolution: Once she's led the "reviewlution", Britta turns out to be just as dictatorial as Shirley was, only where Shirley enforced a strict caste system that placed her and a select elite at the top, Britta enforces a supposedly egalitarian communist-style system which still works to make her more equal than the others. She becomes quite distraught when she loses her seat of power.
• Funny Background Event: The Britta posters show her with mustard on her face.
• Future Music: By day eight of the "MeowMeowBeenz" beta test there are Logan's Run-type futuristic sounds heard on the soundtrack. After Jeff becomes one of the Fives, they do a "future dance" to Source Music played by a band playing futuristic music on futuristic instruments.
• Future Slang: Jeff is referred to as "New Beenz" since he was recently upgraded to a Four.
• Future Spandex: Male "Fours" wear spandex pants.
• Happiness Is Mandatory: The Dean's announcement over the PA system: "Tranquility is advancement. A happy three is a future four."
• Hitler Ate Sugar: Britta tries a Hitler analogy on Annie but fails.
  Britta: You know who else it made sense to?
  Annie: Say Hitler one more time and I am giving you a two.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Shirley's ploy of using her influence as Five to decide who gets to join her clique of Fives backfires when another Five (Koogler, to be exact) raises Jeff's rating to a Five before she could make hers dramatized, Roman Emperor-esque decision, leading to everyone else following his lead.
  • Shirley's attempt to turn the other Fives against Jeff backfires when he points out that he can hear exactly what she's doing, which leads to an argument between the two that leads the other Fives using Shirley's own methodology to remove her status as a Five.
  • Britta, after finally getting into a position of power and influence by leading a revolt against the MeowMeowBeenz app and the Fives by reducing everyone's rating to One, swiftly loses her influence when Jeff points out that there's still one Five left — the app itself. Everyone promptly deletes the app, and Britta loses her influence since her rebellion no longer has a reason to exist, having reached its natural conclusion.
• Hollywood Mid-Life Crisis: Implied of Koogler, given his Suspiciously Specific Denial that he's "not that old!"
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Abed is thrilled by the app and about being a Three since he can now make small talk. When he joins the elite Five class, he's actually miserable. When he's downgraded to a One, he's ecstatic over being "like everyone else."
• Pun
  Britta: Long live the review-lution!
• Inter-Class Romance: Jeff (dressed as a "Four") and Britta (dressed as a "Two") are mistaken for this when caught alone in a room by a "Four". He laments:
  "Y'know, I once loved a Two. Matthew. He was my everything, but numbers change. I'll keep your secret, new Beenz."
• Jerkass Has a Point: Both Jeff and Shirley, in their argument over whether Jeff should have invited Shirley to dinner; Jeff makes the point that he already knew Shirley wouldn't be able to attend anyway because of a regular commitment she had at that time so there was no point in asking her, and Shirley makes the point that it's still nice to be asked. He makes up for it by offering to bring takeout for her on a night where she's busy.
• Just Ignore It: Jeff points out that the MeowMeowBeenz app was controlling all the students, and that the only way to defeat was to delete it and never use it again.
• Karma Houdini: The developers who introduced the app suffer no repercussions for creating a monster hierarchy. One can hope the students' mass deletion sends them a message.
• Lame Comeback:
  Annie: When you have mustard on your lip, I was more open to your opinion. Maybe it dilutes or distracts from your sense of intensity?
  Britta: Maybe it dilutes or distracts from your stupid butt?
• La Résistance: Jeff and Britta's efforts to take down the gang of five's is portrayed as this.
• Laser-Guided Karma: The other Fives downvote Jeff and Shirley to Ones after their fight, seeing them banished to the Outlands. Moments later, Britta leads the "reviewlution" against them, which gets them downgraded as well.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: The Monday after the whole rating system debacle is over Dean announces on the P.A. system:
  "Attention, Greendale. I'd like to propose we forget everything that happened over the last few days, and I don't anticipate a lot of pushback on that. I think we're all pretty embarrassed."
• Losing Horns: A meowing form of this is heard when someone is given a rating of one.
• Manchild: Koogler's clearly at least in his fifth decade (Mitchell Hurwitz was 50 when the episode was filmed), but acts like he's a hard-partying Frat Bro in his teens/early twenties.
• Manipulative Bitch: Jeff calls Shirley out on her tendency to guilt and manipulate people for her own ends twice — first at the beginning, when she guilts everyone over not being invited to dinner by Jeff (who didn't invite her because he knew she was otherwise engaged), and second in their argument after Jeff is made a Five.
  Jeff: When Shirley is available for dinner, we will have another dinner. Because it's just dinner. And there's no need to manipulate each other. And you know that's what you do. And you know that's what you're doing right now with that face.
  Shirley: You don't like my face?
  [Everyone turns on Jeff]
• The Mole: Star-Burns serves the Fives, but also passes information about them to Britta to aid in the revolution.
• My God, What Have I Done?: The whole school walks around like this after Jeff convinces everyone to defeat the app. Most people are not speaking to each other, apart from Starburns being his usual self.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: The tunics worn by male Fours have a plunging neckline.
• "Not So Different" Remark: After spending most of the episode competing against each other, Jeff and Shirley end up acknowledging that they're both insecure Control Freaks who manipulate the people around them in order to feel liked.
• Obfuscating Disability: Chang starts limping because his foot's fallen asleep, but he keeps it up because he gets more MeowMeowBeenz that way. In the Five Hive, he walks on crutches.
• Only Sane Man: Ultimately subverted, as whilst Jeff and Britta fulfill this role, they ultimately wind up no better than anyone else.
  • Jeff is the last one in the school to register for the app, recognizing it as an easily manipulated system based on popularity. However, he winds up manipulating the system himself just so he could be popular again and dethrone Shirley and falls back into this role after demoting himself and Shirley and Britta's reviewlution makes everyone equals.
  • Britta, whilst the rest of the school simply begins taking the logic of the app's ranking as a system of social tiers, notices everyone else losing their self-identity and leads a rebellion against the new order. However, she winds up being no better than Shirley as she assumes a position of leadership in the school because of her popularity.
  • Hickey, who realizes immediately the implications the app would have on the school, and decides to play the system quietly to his advantage for the rest of the episode instead of trying to fight it.
• Onscreen Chapter Titles: Each new day of the experiment is announced with a title card.
• Passive Aggressive Combat: Shirley's method for becoming the queen of MeowMeowBeenz.
• Real Trailer, Fake Movie: The Tag features a trailer for "Koogler", an '80s comedy set in Greendale about the antics of party animal Koogler.
• Remember the New Guy?: Even though it's his first appearance, everybody seems to have already known Koogler.
  Koogler: I know what you guys think of me, OK? Hey, it's Koogler! He's cool! He likes to get laid! He's not that old!
• Rousing Speech: Britta tries this twice.
  • First in the beginning of the episode to convince people not to play along with the app - this gets her voted down to a one.
  • Then when the campus has turned into a full-on dystopia, she tries to get the two's and three's in the cafeteria to rebel, but finds that no one listens to her. So she grabs Starburns' sandwich, smears some mustard on her face, and gets on the bench - this time sparking the reviewlution.
• Running Gag: In-universe example. Every instance we see of Jeff's comedy routine is of him joking about how much Twos love apples.
• Serious Business: Someone decided it would be a good idea to trial a social app that allowed people to rank and rate other people around them there. Of course Greendale was going to turn into 1970s science-fiction dystopia as a result. What else would you expect?
• Shouldn't We Be in School Right Now?: Inverted. After Jeff deletes the app, he points out that it's Saturday and there was no reason for anyone to be in school.
• Shout-Out:
  • The outfits worn by the "Fours" and the security guards are from Logan's Run.
  • Star-Burns is wearing the same Stripperific outfit Sean Connery wore in Zardoz
  • The "fancy future dance" the Fives are doing is from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century as are the glowing balls they're wearing on top of their hands.
  • The caste system that MeowMeowBeenz turns the school into is pretty much straight out of Brave New World.
  • The room number of Jeff's office (D-503) is most likely a reference to the protagonist of Yevgeny Zamyatin's We.
  • The fake trailer for "Koogler" uses the theme song from the Greydon Clark movie Joysticks to set its tone as an 80's teen comedy (since nothing in the trailer itself has anything to do with totally awesome videogames).
• Sigil Spam: The "MeowMeowBeenz" logo appears everywhere on campus by the eighth day of the test, painted on the walls, floors and lockers.
• Slobs vs. Snobs: The Ones and Twos are the slobs, the Fives the snobs. Unusually, this episode also features a middle group who are (mostly) content to remain so.
• Socially Scored Society: An app called MeowMeowBeenz lets Greendale students rate each other. The school immediately devolves into a dystopia (complete with '70s scifi outfits) where the tyrannical Fives live lives of luxury and are waited on by Twos and Threes, while Ones are societal outcasts. The main characters move up and down the scale as a class war eventually breaks out.
  Dean Pelton: Fives have lives, fours have chores, threes have fleas, twos have blues, and ones don't get a rhyme because they're garbage.
• Social Media Is Bad: The moral of the episode, though Played for Laughs. The development of new online social rating system MeowMeowBeenz first causes people scramble to get the highest ratings before the community college devolves into a Logan's Run-style dystopia with social classes tiered by the rankings.
• Sound-Effect Bleep: In a rarity for the show, Jeff's stand-up act apparently has a curse in it requiring it to be bleeped out with the familiar sinetone, which is likely parodying stand-up videos that frequently bleep their curses in highlights.
• Spark of the Rebellion: Britta's speech in the cafeteria rallies everyone to march into Fives' sanctum.
• Status Quo Is God: At the end, Jeff points out both that the app's beta-period ended several days ago and it's now live on the App Store and that they're all in school on a Saturday for no reason, thus rendering Britta's "reviewlution" completely pointless.
• Stealth Insult:
  Garrett: Can I get a picture? I want my future kids to know this happened!
  Jeff: I admire your optimism, Garrett.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: The middle-aged party animal Koogler states that everyone thinks he's cool and "not that old."
• Taking You with Me: Jeff gets himself thrown out of The Fives area by pointing out that Shirley is being passive-aggressive and he can hear her insults. This is done while knowing that they would turn on him as well
• Tall Poppy Syndrome: The reason people with a rating of two or three wear only neutral grey. As Abed explains: "Looking like you want to move up can get you moved down."
• Third-Person Person: Koogler mentions his own name in every other sentence he says.
  "Oh, the Koog approves, that's a Five!"
• Time Skip: The episode moves from "Day 2" of the beta test, when everybody was still using "MeowMeowBeenz" as just a social networking app to "Day 8" when it's turned Greendale into a caste-system Dystopia.
• This Means War Paint: After being annoyed that the only way anyone would be open to her opinion was if she had a little mustard on her face, Britta decides to smear a lot of mustard on her cheek and makes a Rousing Speech to get the Twos and Threes to revolt against the Fives.
• Urban Segregation: Greendale becomes this within days of the "MeowMeowBeenz" app beta test with the people with a "five" rating living in privilege behind a gate, with twos and threes confined to their own areas.
• Villainous Breakdown: Britta gets pretty upset when the MeowMeowBeenz app is uninstalled and her regime becomes obsolete. She tries to get everyone to stay and puts more mustard on her face, but everyone ignores her.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Shirley and the other members of the Save Greendale committee use this on Jeff when they learn he didn't invite Shirley to dinner and refuses to change it to another time.
  • Jeff, in turn, uses this on Shirley over her tendency to guilt and manipulate people to get what she wants.
• White Dude, Black Dude: Jeff's stand-up routine is mostly comparing the way Twos, Threes, and Fours act.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Abed says MeowMeowBeenz helps him see relationships in a clear new way and is elated to have social interactions with the Threes. However, he is roped into being a Five, and he's miserable. When he expresses displeasure at being a Five, the rest of the Fives just continue to upvote him for his honesty.
• Yes Woman: Annie becomes Shirley's by day two of the beta test, even imitating her "Mm-hmm!" to Jeff.
• You Monster!: Abed calls the "Fives" monsters after he complains that he was happier as a "Three" and they continue to give him high ratings.

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