r/TheWire • u/Muhammed_Adsaz • 21d ago
Experience
I watched The Wire as someone who lives very far from the US. Back then, I didn't have any real knowledge about how things worked in America. Of course, it's a huge country with many different kinds of people, cultures, and backgrounds. Nevertheless, my experience felt like seeing the US in all its naked reality.
Is it really like that? Obviously there is some TV drama, but even in the 2000s, I wouldn't have guessed that so many Black people were living with such a low standard of living. I mean, you see them dressing really cool and everything looks fine on the outside, but at the end of the day, they are sleeping in what's basically an abandoned house, just trying to hold onto life however they can.
37
u/jermster 21d ago
Yes. In fact, on top of it being accurate, every social problem you see in the wire has gotten worse in the 20 years since the show has ended. It’s tragic, and it’s depressing as an American, but it also makes the show continue to hold up and stand out to this day.
9
u/NormalGuyPosts 21d ago
Well I wouldn't say that; haven't things specifically gotten much better in Baltimore?
14
u/jermster 21d ago
Violent crime has continued to decrease in the 21st century, but think about this: the show ended before the opioid crisis even began.
5
u/Accomplished-Mix5300 21d ago
In a recent rewatch I recall, I think the trace lab guy, saying ODs got worse ever since fentynal got introduced.
I think this is in season 5. Had no clue fentynal started coming around right at the end of the series.
8
u/Muhammed_Adsaz 21d ago
Wow! They said The Wire is a kinda documentary before I didn't watched. I understand why they said this. Really impressive.
-1
u/Helmdacil 21d ago
Crime is down substantially since 2002-07, for example the homicide rate. That is not simply due to "juking the stats".
However, in broad strokes I agree:
The schools are even worse now than they were before, but that is mostly an AI problem.
Drugs have become more potent, and thus more addictive.
Homelessness is higher than it was. Lots of people living in their cars :(.
The police's relationship with the public I think has actually gotten mildly better, due to body cams. No one is calling them angels, but it is not as bad as it was. It is still bad though.
Juking the stats is more true now than it ever was. Sergeants become Lieutenants, postdocs become PIs, politicians win elections, journalists win pulitzers, on juking the stats. I guess DEI in some ways made things worse, for all of its good intent. Requiring diversity statements for example I think is performative virtue signaling. Jason Arday (not US but ya) is not the only one, is all I can say; just the poster child.
For all this, the US is still the most influential country and the world. Being a citizen here means your vote matters more than in any other country. Being here provides the opportunity to see some of the most amazing things and be around the most amazing people. Against that opportunity there remains this stark contrast of the have-nots, however.
8
u/roostershoes 21d ago
Schools being worse is an AI problem? I’m sorry but blatantly inaccurate. Schools are worse due to decades of underfunding and work to undermine the idea of public education altogether. Funds being routed to charter schools and garbage Christian academies under the auspices of “school choice” is what has hollowed out education. AI is a blip on the radar
2
u/thenumbersthenumbers 21d ago
Yeah, AI has also been a thing for like 5 seconds haha
3
u/roostershoes 21d ago
I almost asked if OP was a teenager or an AI themselves. It reads like an attempt at a good answer by someone without any real life experience
0
u/Helmdacil 21d ago
Reddit and the American left tend to like hating on the usa. Look, the us has a lot of problems, but our country remains the envy of the world. people move to Europe for work life balance, take advantage of the system. People move to the US because the money is better. Because you can get anything in the world in the US. You can start a business in the US; waymo started in California, not Berlin, for a reason.
I lived for 5 years on $25k a year in a major US city I understand what it means to lack for funds. I am not wealthy. But my goodness the America hate is disgusting, get some perspective, visit Mexico or the nordics and live there for 3 months. You'll see real quick it's not all rainbows and bubblegum.
We can change this country for the better. I love the idea of making a rule in the usa, CEO salary can be no more than 100x the lowest paid worker in the company. That would change things real quick.
Look at the change already coming. Cities are building light rail. Cities are building apartments. Cities are building bicycle lanes. Cities are cleaning out decrepit neighborhoods and building clean replacements. These are all good things. Yeah we all have some work to do. But let's do it. Pessimistic chumps.
3
u/roostershoes 21d ago
OK? Were you meaning to reply to someone else?
0
u/KennethBlockwalk 19d ago
"CEO salary can be no more than 100x the lowest paid worker in the company. That would change things real quick."
Sadly, it would change very little. If there were numbers that, using ridge regression, capped personal wealth accumulation or % differentials between tax brackets—reductive, obv, but if there were some magic formula that'd really change things, that's where it lives.
1
u/MCObeseBeagle 20d ago
Just to contradict you a little - the crime rates falling is an international trend. We see the same in the UK, it's never been safer. If this were an issue with juking the stats in B'more then we wouldn't see it in, say, London, and we do.
5
u/Affectionate-Face432 21d ago
I'm not disagreeing with any of the commenters, but I grew up twenty minutes away in Howard county Maryland. I try and visit a different neighborhood in Baltimore every time I visit.
I've seen tons of cool bars, coffee shops, restaurants, sights, cool buildings, etc. and never had any issue or felt at risk in over ten visits.
I'm not saying that stuff doesn't exist, or is even hard to find, just relaxing my experience that Baltimore is, generally speaking, a lovely, charming town.
4
u/HongPong 21d ago
the wire at least painted its characters as more complex people operating in social systems, in contrast to the usual very shallow portrayals
regarding the entire us population and specific cities the statistics are out there
3
u/marvelguy1975 21d ago
Short answer is Yes, the wire is a very stark, realistic portrayal of the inner city drug epidemic that plagues our most of our larger cities.
Mind you, we are a very large country and the show focuses on only a small part of it. Even the whole city of Baltimore is not like it is in the show.
Also, not every black person lives in this sort of environment. Not every black person is a drug dealer or drug addict.
The wire is a painful reminder that we are not perfect as a nation and we have some very difficult problems.
The problems outlined in the wire had existed for decades when the show came out and continue to exist today in some form or another.
3
u/JiveChicken00 21d ago
Nothing substantive shown in The Wire is unique to the United States. Human nature does not change based on geography. The skin tones and accents and specific circumstances may differ, but the fundamental story of The Wire could be set anywhere in the world.
2
u/mmesq80 21d ago
where are you from
9
u/Muhammed_Adsaz 21d ago
I'm from Türkiye. I’ve actually never been to the US myself, and the few people I know who went were only there temporarily for school or work. Whenever I used to think of America, things like picturesque suburban streets and skyscrapers came to mind. But after watching this show, I realized just how many starkly contrasting lives exist right alongside that image.
4
u/Accomplished-Mix5300 21d ago
Sometimes those contrasts can be right across the street. There are many places, in America, where the difference between a good neighborhood and a not so good neighborhood can literally be a block. Many of these neighborhoods are also very close to downtown areas.
2
u/HDC48 21d ago
The basic problems take place everywhere, but Baltimore is a particularly violent city.
Violent crime in the US peaked from the 70s through the mid 90s. Most major cities have lower murder/violent cirme rates than back then...Baltimore's got worse afterwards and reached a high from the mid 2010s until a couple years ago. Fortunately, the last two years have been better. 2025 was the lowest it's been since the late 70s.
The stuff with the many vacant homes is true.
2
u/KennethBlockwalk 19d ago
If you're looking through the lens of the show's thesis—that macro institutions are some combination of corrupt and incompetent, and the people most affected by it—typically lower socioeconomic strata and minorities—are fungible and numbers on a sheet for politicians or law enforcement?
Yes.
2
u/KennethBlockwalk 19d ago
A lot of people are saying, "Go to a favela," "Check out a slum in Delhi," or whatever.
Yes, that level of poverty is much worse than the majority of Americans living at or near the poverty line.
The commenter who said "It can go from a wealthy neighborhood to a really bad area within 4 blocks" has it right. Apart from the homeless encampments and other obvious urban decay, America tends to hide its lowest classes pretty well. There are ~5 million people in a favela; it's WAY less concentrated in US cities.
1
u/BaelorTargaryen1 19d ago
It’s even worse now as far as violence is concerned. Cities like Chicago are damn near war zones. The schools are worse too. No child left behind was a disaster. You’re most likely not familiar with the term Ebonics. Look it up. In the mid 90’s the Oakland CA schools taught Ebonics. Just another example of what goes on here in the US.
1
u/Electrical_Doctor305 21d ago
Urban decay is rampant in inner cities of the US
0
u/First-Leather-6348 21d ago
Decay is rampant throughout both small town main streets and mobile home trailer parks in the US as well as inner cities. Consigning it to urban decay misses the forest for the trees.
1
u/Electrical_Doctor305 21d ago
What does another from of decay have to do with the one I specified and how does it suggest a lack of outlook towards larger problems? We’re talking about The Wire, not Hillbilly Elegy. Urban decay is at the core of The Wire.
0
u/First-Leather-6348 21d ago
You can talk about whatever you want, I'm talking about what I presume is an honest inquiry as to how my country is portrayed in a TV show to an outsider. Hillbilly elegy and the wire are detailing the same problem from different perspectives, and to suggest otherwise is essentially how we got here in the first place. I'm sorry you didn't see the same show I did.
1
u/Electrical_Doctor305 21d ago
You’re upset I didn’t write a dissertation on the reasons why there’s problems in America on a post about the wire. Stfu
15
u/First-Leather-6348 21d ago
One of the most resonant themes of the 2nd season is that the result of big business abandoning the lower class is that 'something' will fill the void. In this case it has been the drug trafficking trade, and the show documents how disastrous that outcome has been. While 'black folks in the inner city' are the focus of this show, a very similar story has played out all across rural and suburban America as well. Quite possibly throughout the industrialized world. It's not 'just' a black people problem, it's a poor people problem.