The Good Place As A Social Satire

It's very difficult to make social satire these days. Make one false move and you'll get a scarlet letter label of some sort. I suspected from the 3rd episode on that this show was really tackling a bigger issue with some clandestine social criticism. There has been a lot of denial of this when there were suggestions that really none of the 4 characters were truly "good" after all (although none are that bad). This was finally cemented as the makers' intent in the season finale. Here's my thoughts on the social targets of each character:

Jason: Here's your typical oblivious modern consumer type or the perpetual teenager. His only interests are his narrow band of trite popular culture pastimes: video games, music, junk food, recreational drugs. And all wrapped up in an utter disinterest in any regarding society and his contribution to it.

Tahani: She represents the affluence bubble. She puts on a great public show of moral superiority yet at her core is obsessed with appearances, materialism. awards, public pontification and class-ism. My guess is that the makers knew that making her from the urban artist class would be too on the mark.

Chidi: He represents the intellectual/university humanities bubble. He's pretentious. He writes rambling babble that someone along the way pretended to understand (he's got a PhD). He is neutered by his own inability to act on anything concrete.

Eleanor: She represents the intentionally disinterested. She's the so called edgy person trying to make a show of her disaffection and contempt for the world.