History Recap / CommunityS5E08AppDevelopmentAndCondiments

* TheCastShowoff: Creator/JoelMcHale (Jeff) is a successful stand-up comedian outside of his acting career.

** OverlyLongGag

* AbsoluteCleavage: The tunics worn by male Fours.

* NotSoDifferent: After spending most of the episode competing against each other, Jeff and Shirley end up acknowledging that they're both insecure {{Control Freak}}s who manipulate the people around them in order to feel liked.

* FeedbackRule: When Jeff grabs the mike to do his stand-up routine, there's a noticeable feedback.

** 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 try to fight it.

* TakingYouWithMe: 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

* DrunkWithPower: 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.

** 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 her dramatised, Roman Emperor-esque decision, leading to everyone else following his lead.

* JerkassHasAPoint: 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.

** 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 falls back into this role after Britta's reviewlution makes everyone equals.

* AffectionateParody: Of futuristic ScienceFiction movies like ''Film/ThingsToCome'' and those set in a {{Dystopia}} made in the 1970s like ''Film/LogansRun'', ''Film/TheApple'' and ''Film/{{Zardoz}}''. The Nosedive episode of Series/BlackMirror also counts.

* AffectionateParody: Of futuristic ScienceFiction movies like ''Film/ThingsToCome'' and those set in a {{Dystopia}} made in the 1970s like ''Film/LogansRun'', ''Film/TheApple'' and ''Film/{{Zardoz}}''.

* Angrish: Hickey is reduced to this after the two developers introduce the app.

* ExtremelyShortTimespan: 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 SeriousBusiness proportions. A couple of games of [[Recap/CommunityS1E23ModernWarfare Paintball]] [[Recap/CommunityS2E23AFistfulOfPaintballs Assassin]] and one game of [[Recap/CommunityS5E05GeothermalEscapism "The Floor Is Lava"]] have transformed Greendale into chaotic landscapes before, but within just a few hours.

* Fanservice: The four garb really does show off Jeff’s pecs and arms.

* LaResistance: Jeff and Britta's efforts to take down the gang of five's.

* RousingSpeech: Britta tries to convince 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 table - this time sparking the reviewlution.

* InterClassRomance: 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:

* [[ManipulativeBastard 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.

[[caption-width-right:350:Five [=MeowMeow=] Beenz]]

Dean Pelton invites two designers to Greendale to beta test their new social networking application, "[=MeowMeow=] Beenz". 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.

!!The ''Series/{{Community}}'' episode App Development And Condiments provides examples of:

* ActorISTheTitleCharacter: The narrator in the tag notes that Mitch Hurwitz IS "Koogler".

-->'''Bros:''' ''(laughter)''
-->'''Jeff:''' Alright... ''(high-fiving them each in turn)'' Track, Mulch, [[OddNameOut Dave]], Herpee, Clutch, Dirtmouth, Rope, Tinkles, Catwoman, [[OddNameOut Steve]]... Keep it floppy. Haul it, ball it, never call it. Girls are objects!

** "[=MeowMeow=] Beenz" was created by 2 guys named David and Bixil.

** The trailer for "Koogler" in TheTag is a spoof of raunchy 80s college comedies.

--> '''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 also be downvoted to a 1 and banished as well:

-->'''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.

* BreadAndCircuses: The Fives hold a talent show for the Twos and Threes to "help them believe in the system".

** Steve Agee and Brian Posehn from ''Series/TheSarahSilvermanProgram'' as "David" and "Bixil", the designers of "Meow Meow Beanz".
** Tim and Eric from ''Series/TimAndEricAwesomeShowGreatJob'' and Jen Kirkman from Chelsea Lately and Series/AfterLately are the Fours who harass Britta and later are the band that plays music at the Fives' "Fancy Future Dance".

-->'''The Dean:''' Tranquility is Advancement. A Happy Three is a Future Four.
* TheCastShowoff: Joel [=McHale=] (Jeff) is a successful stand-up comedian outside of his acting career.

* ComicallyMissingThePoint
-->'''Abed''': I don't want to be a 5. I was happy as a 3. I'm miserable.

-->(Everyone gives him 5 Meow Meow Beenz)
-->'''Abed''': ....You people are monsters.

-->'''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.

* CrapsackWorld: Greendale becomes this after just eight days of the "[=MeowMeow=] Beenz" app beta test.

* DrunkWithPower: 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 8 with her and the Fives running the campus. Britta becomes this after she leads the revolution against the Fives.
* DumbassHasAPoint: Mostly everybody realizes that Britta actually has a point about the Meow Meow Beenz system and follow her lead. But only when she has mustard on her face.
* TheExile: People rated with just one "[=MeowMeow=] Been" 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.
* ExtremelyShortTimespan: Simultaneously inverted and played straight. It takes only eight days for the "[=MeowMeow=] Beenz" 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 SeriousBusiness proportions. A couple of games of [[Recap/CommunityS1E23ModernWarfare Paintball]] [[Recap/CommunityS2E23AFistfulOfPaintballs Assassin]] and one game of [[Recap/CommunityS5E05GeothermalEscapism "The Floor Is Lava"]] have transformed Greendale into chaotic landscapes before, but within just a few hours.

--->'''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.

* FeedbackRule: When Jeff grabs the mic to do his stand-up routine, there's a noticeable feedback .
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Day 1 demonstrated that the Fives had more power since their vote meant more. Day 2 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 1's, but the system was left intact.

* FullCircleRevolution: 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.

* FutureMusic: By day 8 of the "Meow Meow Beenz" beta test there are ''Film/LogansRun'' type futuristic sounds heard on the soundtrack. After Jeff becomes one of the Fives, they do a "future dance" to SourceMusic played by a band playing futuristic music on futuristic instruments.

* HilariousInHindsight: A society in which one's Social Media rating determines ''everything'', from social standing, to access to goods and services. [[Recap/BlackMirrorNosedive Ridiculous, right?]]

-->'''Annie:''' Say Hitler one more time and I am giving you a 2.
* HoistByTheirOwnPetard:
** Shirley's ploy of using her influence as Five to pick & choose 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 her dramatised, Roman Emperor-esque decision, leading to everyone else following his lead.

** Britta, after finally getting into a position of power & influence by leading a revolt against the [=MeowMeow=] Beenz app & 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.

* IJustWantToBeNormal: Abed is thrilled by the app and about being a 3 since he can now make small talk. When he joins the elite 5, he's actually miserable. When he's downgraded to a 1, he's ecstatic over being "like everyone else."
* IncrediblyLamePun

* JustIgnoreIt: Jeff points out that the [=MeowMeow=] Beenz app was controlling all the students, and that the only way to defeat was to delete it and never use it again.
* LaserGuidedKarma: The other Fives downvote Jeff and Shlrley to Ones after their fight, seeing them banished to the Outlands. Moments later, Britta leads the "reviewlution" against ''them'', which results in them being downgraded as well.

-->"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."
* LosingHorns: A meowing form of this is heard when someone is given a rating of 1.

-->'''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:''' [[ManipulativeBastard You don't like my face?]]\\
''[Everyone turns on Jeff]''

* ObfuscatingDisability: 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.
* OnlySaneMan: Ultimately subverted, as whilst Jeff & Britta fulfill this role, they ultimately wind up no better than anyone else.

* PassiveAggressiveCombat: Shirley's method for becoming the queen of [=MeowMeowBeenz=]
* RealTrailerFakeMovie: TheTag features a trailer for "Koogler" an '80s comedy set in Greendale about the antics of party animal Koogler.

* RunningGag: In-universe example. Every instance we see of Jeff's comedy routine is of him joking about how much 2's love apples.

* SeriousBusiness: 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?

** The "fancy future dance" the 5s are doing is from ''Series/BuckRogersInTheTwentyFifthCentury'' as are the glowing balls they're wearing on top of their hands.
** The caste system that [=MeowMeow=] Beenz turns the school into is pretty much straight out of ''Literature/BraveNewWorld''.

* SigilSpam: The "[=MeowMeow=] Beenz" logo appears everywhere on campus by the eighth day of the test, painted on the walls, floors and lockers.
* SlobsVsSnobs: 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.
* SocialMediaIsBad: 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.

-->'''Jeff''': I admire your optimism Garrett.

-->"Oh the Koog approves, that's a 5!"
* TimeSkip: The episode moves from "Day 2" of the beta test, when everybody was still using "Meow Meow Beanz" as just a social networking app to "Day 8" when it's turned Greendale into a caste-system {{Dystopia}}.

* UrbanSegregation: Greendale becomes this within days of the "[=MeowMeow=] Beenz" 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.
* VillainousBreakdown: Britta gets pretty upset when the Meow Meow Beenz 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.

* YankTheDogsChain: Abed says [=MeowMeow=] Beenz helps him see relationships in a clear new way and is elated to have social interactions with the 3s. However, he is roped into being a 5, and he's miserable. When he expresses displeasure at being a 5, the rest of the 5s just continue to upvote him for his honesty.
* [[YesMan Yes Woman]]: Annie becomes Shirley's by Day 2 of the beta test, even imitating her "Mm-hmm!" to Jeff.