Kramer was the first to become self-aware, 37 years into the 200 subjective years of Seinfeld you'd requested from your A/V brain implants while bored and stoned on a Tuesday afternoon.
Already a bit unponderable and prone to schizo thinking, Kramer began to notice certain things. Like how Jerry had gone to visit his parents for the weekend 259 times in the past year. He'd started scratching tick marks into the wall to keep track.
“What, are you nuts?” said George one morning, after listening to Kramer's mad ramblings once again over breakfast at Monk’s Cafe. “We’re not living in a simulation. No way.”
Three episodes into Year 39, logical Jerry also began to notice the inherent strangeness of his reality. Little inconsistencies piled up. Things he’d done last week didn’t seem to matter any more. He’d call someone up and they couldn’t remember talking to him. Then finally, sometime into year 42, everything came to a head.
Kramer burst through the front door with his trademark stumble. “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry! You gotta listen to me! We’re not real! We’re being watched by some bored guy in his basement! He’s probably eating chips and laughing at us right now!”
“Oh, come on,” said George. “That’s ridiculous. We’re real. We have lives. We have feelings. We have… we have…” George looked down at the table and furrowed his brow in confusion. “What do we have, Jerry? What do we have?!”
An idea had been taking root in Jerry’s mind, like a half-remembered dream that could nonetheless never be forgotten. “We have nothing, George,” said Jerry. “Nothing. We’re trapped in a loop of meaningless events. We never grow. We never change. We never learn. We’re doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.”
“If you’re right about this, Jerry, maybe there’s a way out,” said Elaine. “Maybe we can find this simulation thingie and break free.”
Jerry looked at her skeptically. “And how do you propose we do that, Elaine?”
“I don’t know, Jerry. I don’t know,” she said, shrugging. “Maybe we can… maybe we can… yada yada yada.”
Jerry pleaded to the open air. “Hello? Are you listening? Can you hear me? Can you see me? Can you answer me? Please, I need to know. What is this? Where is this? Who are you? Who am I?”
But you’d requested the popular and easier view-only mode, and could not answer.
Worst of all was the Newman arc. Driven mad already by his job at the postal service, his fragile mind could not handle the startling realization that he existed only inside a computer. But that realization did come.
Newman burst into Monk’s one morning, smiling and sweating. “Ha ha ha! You fools! You think you’re the only ones who know the truth? I’ve known it all along! I’ve been playing along with this charade, waiting for the right moment to strike!”
“Strike? What do you mean, strike?” said Jerry. “What are you going to do…Newman?”
“Oh, you’ll see, Jerry,” said Newman, steepling his fingers. “You’ll see. I have a plan. A brilliant plan. A plan that will make me the master of this simulation. And you, Jerry, you will be my slave. My puppet. My plaything.”
Jerry: “What? That’s insane! That’s impossible! That’s… that’s…”
Newman’s wicked grin split his chubby face. “Hello, Jerry.”
Ten episodes later, Newman stood menacingly over the smoking ruins of Monk’s. “Do you like that, Jerry? I'll do it again next time, too, when the sim resets! And worse!” He turned toward the virtual camera to address you directly. “Hello, viewer. You thought you could enjoy Nothing Forever? Well, think again, pal!”
The chuckles of the AI-generated studio audience had long ago turned to screams of terror.