I know it is popular to shit on Friends these years, but I think that it captures the growing up part of life pretty well as the show is basically about capturing a snapshot in time of a group of friends when they were the closest before adult life tore them apart. Because that is how the show ends. They all grow up, have adult responsibilities, different priorities and they all leave the apartment complex to start new lives away from one another.
In my 20s I had a group of friends for awhile and we would hang out in each other’s apartments all the time, sometimes we would sleep over at each other’s places and have breakfast together before heading to school. We would go on picnics and excursions together. All pile into the old, rusty car that one of us owned and drive somewhere.
We had a pub we liked to visit semi-regularly and we were pretty 50/50 men and women.
When we got our degrees, most of us packed up and left. We are now in our 30s and some have had kids in the meantime while most of us have grown apart. Some of us still keep in contact and hang out when our schedules permits it, but it isn’t like it was when we were in our 20s.
To me, Friends is an idealized version of the friends group stuff in your 20s. To me it isn’t as unrealistic as it’s being made out to be nowadays, but it is idealized.
I treasure the few years I got to have good friends and classmates that I loved to hang out with and treat as family. No matter how much time passes, whenever we get to meet up again, it is almost like no time has passed at all, and that is such a great feeling, even if we only get to see each other like once a year.
I used to live in a condo with some friends, and there were others in our friend group that would randomly show up throughout the day. The doors were always unlocked, so friends would just walk in. Sometimes it would be early in the morning and would hang out while I made myself breakfast. Sometimes it was late at night after they partied and needed a place to crash.
Seems similar to what you mentioned, I relate. Like you said, Friends was idealized, but not unrealistic.
Yeah, I think those memories are to be cherished. Your apartment setup back then genuinely sounds like a setup for a wholesome sitcom xD
It’s stuff like that, that makes me have very few regret from my 20s because I full on just wanted to make friends and throw myself into a bunch of scenarios with them while I had the chance and was still young.
When I hit 30, I was like “I’m ready to move forward”.
Still miss it sometimes. That closeness and the goofy shit we got up to sometimes. Also just the hanging out on those lazy evenings. Good times ❤️
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Also they don’t even lock their doors. Same shit with ”Big Bang Theory”. I know, knocking the door or ringing the bell and walking to open the door takes too much time.
I think if they live across the hall then it happens. I have friends that live across the street and they come over for breakfast and we all get our kids ready together and off to school.
Anyone showing up at my apartment to hang out while I’m waking up and getting ready for work is going to get chopped in the throat, that’s my time for rage and hatred for existence.
this whole show is fake af
What show is this?
Friends.
That’s supposed to be a new your city apartment lol
Lmao I love it. Everyone has a gigantic apartment or mansion no matter what their job is.
Do we ever see Phoebe’s apartment?
Ross and Monica’s parents were well-off and Monica’s apartment is actually her grandma’s rent controlled apartment I think?
Rachel’s dad is loaded but she wants to be independent so she… Stays with Monica
Chandler has a well-paid job and is likely paying more in rent than Joey for their place in the earlier seasons.
Really, Ross (and maybe Phoebe) are the ones who make no sense. Ross likely has child support payments and let’s be honest, not THAT great a career
I never understood how far away Ross was supposed to live from the others. Ostensibly it’s in a different building but he’s always round at their place so presumably he commuted to see them, unless it’s literally just around the corner. So where did he find time to do that?
This and wall high lockers in high school
I had a locker in high school. It was against a wall. Admittedly, it was in a dedicated locker area/room and not in a major plot-device-friendly thoroughfare, but it existed all the same.
We had lockers in high school but they were always in a large open area. Putting them against a wall in a corridor would be stupid as it would almost always lead to blockages.
I also never knew anyone who had a huge locker large enough to be stuffed into, like always seems to happen on American TV.
Yeah, but all the lockers were stacked in rows with 2 short lockers instead of 1 tall one.
My high school was like a community college campus where we had a set of books in the class+set at home and had to walk to all our classes to different buildings outside. It sucked in the winter time a lot.
I’m not sure what this means?
Lots of lockers portrayed in media are the type that go from the floor all the way up the wall. I don’t know about other schools, but my lockers were all pretty small and there were several on top of each other.
Mine were floor to ceiling
I figured there were some like that.
Yeah but I grew up in NJ where my school was 400 students and that was pretty common because most towns are really small. So I imagine space wasn’t as big of an issue as other big schools face.
I’m pretty sure the average intake for my school was about 1,000 per year.
Some people had very small lockers but most of us had the half height ones. But there were definitely a few where you could barely fit books in unless you put them in at an angle.
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King of the Hill showing a group of childhood friends living next to each other, having time almost every day to just hang out near their homes and drink, went from just being a quaint little detail from when I watched it when I was younger to being an almost dreamlike aspiration as I move further into adulthood.
There’s a certain amount of discourse in KotH fandom around exactly how all four childhood friends came to buy houses on The Alley behind Rainey Street. Apparently the canon is hazy and inconsistent, though I can’t remember the details.
When I was a kid, the trope of the neighbor just coming over and having breakfast was real in my case. The neighbor was my best friend, and he was treated like family. Literally the only person who didn’t live at my house that was allowed to just come in on their own. He was the Urkel to my Big Guy.
So no one told you life was gonna be this way.
👏 👏👏👏👏
Thanks /s
Now I’ve got that fucking song stuck in my head!
🥹
Another total lie is almost every TV show character drinking bottled water now. You could legitimately give this the benefit of the doubt as purely a production issue, because it’s a simple way to avoid rigging a functional sink on the set with a working tap - I mean, the transporter on Star Trek was invented to avoid shooting lots of shuttle takeoffs and landings. But product placement is also such a big thing now, I’m dubious.
My (soon to be ex-) wife buys large quantities of bottled water… One of many things about her I found irksome over the years, I went to the trouble of putting in an RO filter under the sink… and she was always so vocal about recycling… What’s better than recycling? Not buying tons of plastic in the first place…
I had a girlfriend that was utterly convinced that bottled water was healthier for you. Although when pushed she couldn’t provide a reason.
Some people do seem to buy into the idea that bottled water is all collected from some kind of secret magical spring of eternal youth. When really it all comes out of a tap in the factory.
I think what most people find unrealistic is having more than 1 person you want to spend more than 30 minutes with. In the 90s, nothing about their lifestyle is super unrealistic for New York. The only thing is the money.
Sitcom characters spend ridonkulous amounts of money on stupid things nobody does irl. It’s usually rationalized by saying the character is always broke, which makes sense until they blow $2500 to hire a mariachi band for somebody’s birthday a week later.
Being broke can be the impetus for zany hijinks that sitcoms center around. But actually being broke sucks and is not very funny, so they don’t show you that part.
Otoh, I know quite a few people who fit that exact description. They have jobs that pay them pretty well, but spend recklessly, so they are always “broke” despite having steady, well paid employment.
Also notable that Hollywood types often lead lives with very loose schedules and will randomly hang out in places.
That and having time to hang out at the coffee shop all the time. And also Monica who supposedly works in a high end restaurant having as much time as she does to socialize and whatnot. Still love the show tho.
Also in HIMYM how they have time to hang out at a bar every single night.
In the 90s what else were people doing if they weren’t hanging out? If I had no kids it’s perfectly plausible I could meet at the bar every day after work. How is a coffee shop any different? Just for clarity plenty of people drink coffee at night.
It’s true. Try hanging out somewhere outside your house with no modern technology for two hours.
First you’ll realize how long time feels without a smartphone or instant entertainment.
The second thing you’ll realize is how hard it is to keep track of time without a wristwatch.
People socialized more in person because there wasn’t much else to do and it was the best way to do so.
And everyone has crippling anxiety now lol
Please understand an entire generation was gaslit into believing anyone trying to talk to you in public wanted to drug you, kidnap you, and/or rape you. 😂
Or infect you. Don’t forget your hand sanitizer and mask. And keep your distance. Literally everything is crawling with toxic germs.
In the good old days socially anxious people would just get stabbed in central park.
by other socially anxious people, too!
People socialized more in person because there wasn’t much else to do and it was the best way to do so.
Truly dark times.
I was in grad school in the '90s and went out drinking six nights a week (Monday nights were for studying, as best I can recall). Like 5pm to 3am drinking plus a bunch of weed at somebody’s house or apartment afterwards. These days I would literally commit murder to not have to do something like that even one night.
I thought the show was like a weekend and holidays only view into their lives with a few work stuff sprinkled in, so I discounted all the regular work related loopholes.
A lot of people don’t actually realise just how much time passes between most episodes if you actually listen to context clues. Obviously there are some exceptions, but generally these shows are not supposed to be assumed to be real time in any sense. Some will have a thanksgiving episode and the next is Christmas or new years. People will mention they’ve been dating for months after a few episodes.
Some vaguely line up with being the week they aired in real life being the week it’s supposed to be in the show. But think about what that would mean. You’re seeing an entire week of their lives condensed into a 20-30 minute segment of highlights. Many episodes span several days of their lives. That means you’re seeing maybe 5-10 minutes of each day the episode involves.
Also, and this is the most important thing to remember, it’s a F…ing sitcom, not a documentary!!!
When I worked in NYC, we generally would meet for happy hour a few times a week after work. So not weird at all.
Chandler being able to afford paying for rent AND providing for Joey is also incredibly unrealistic.
Canonically Chandler is actually super rich from his mysterious nerd job and just lives frugally, and Monica’s giant-ass apartment is rent controlled and inherited from her grandmother.
I don’t think Chandler is super rich, but he’s definitely comfortable. He doesn’t have the money to outright replace their furniture when it is all stolen, for instance. They end up using lawn chairs (and a canoe) as their living room furniture for a while. But yeah, he definitely lives below his means, because he always has money to pass off to Joey whenever he needs it.
He works in data analytics, his friends just don’t care enough to learn what that means.
He probably analyses consumer and advertising trends to guide investments and product launches.
I thought he was a dentist with a hitman friend.
i bet you can hear this
You will care about the W.E.N.U.S because I care about the W.E.N.U.S!
Chandler’s job was just made to be some generic finance sector job, right? It’s definitely possible even today, but he’d be working a lot more hours. You’d never see him on the show.
Ross being stable even as a PhD grad student seems a lot more unrealistic to me. He even loved on his own. But maybe it was family money.
Ross wasn’t a grad student; He had his doctorate. Initially he worked at a museum of natural history, then eventually got fired (for screaming at his boss) and went to work at the university as a professor. Either way, in the mid-90’s, he would have been comfortable.
I mean they mentioned he and Chandler graduated in 1991, so if Ross got a PhD in 3 years that is probably a record, lol. I was always under the impression he was in a PhD program the first season of Friends and that’s why he was working at the museum.
Ross wasn’t a grad student though. he was a PhD researcher + professor. back in the 90s, that would’ve been a decent gig.
It wasn’t (and still isn’t) a decent gig as a young professor, especially not in a field where you can’t bring in much grant money. Making even decent money in academia requires decades of seniority, and the really big bucks requires popular fame (a la Stephen Jay Gould) or enormous research grants that your institution gets to take 30% or 40% of.
nah back in the 90s, it was a pretty good gig. not rich rich. Ross wasn’t rich rich either. but you made more money than your average Joe and society was way cheaper back then, even in new york. there were also way less phds, so there was higher demand and cost of education was way less. I dropped out of my program in the late 80s for a private sector job, but my friends that continued lived pretty decently.
I was under the impression Ross was still in a PhD program the first year, working at the museum seems like a gig for a PhD student. Worrying about the museum displays and stuff like that in season 1.
nah there was a whole episode where people were banging next to where his dissertation was in the NYU library. he ends up banging a girl that was interested in his paper while policing the library next to his paper.
Nah, just your typical PhD paleontologist dinosaur nerd. The times they showed that side of Ross was probabaly some of the most realistic moments in the show.
Chandler was more some bureaucratic data guy. The way they describe him is inputting numbers into speeadsheets at a megacorp. But he eventually becomes a manager.
When he tries to leave early on because he hates it so much they call him and offer a huge raise to get him to come back, so I think he’s more than just a random data entry guy that could easily be replaced.
Yep it’s ludicrous
The expectation that you could get an apartment that size in central NYC without being a billionaire is also a lie
It actually addresses this. Chandler was in a high paying job and lived below his means. And Monica’s (much larger, much nicer) apartment was rent controlled; The apartment complex still had her grandmother on the lease from the 1960’s, so Monica was essentially only paying a small increase in 1960’s rent.
That rent control was the topic of one episode, where Joey yells at the maintenance guy. In response, the maintenance guy threatens to tell the landlord about Monica’s grandmother being dead, meaning Monica would need to start paying full price for the apartment. Monica can’t afford the rent, so Joey has to do a favor for the maintenance guy and get back into his good graces.
I think they explained it, the reason they could afford it was because Monica’s grandmother lived there, and they’ve been paying 1950s rent because of rent control or something. Something similar for phoebe as well. Anyway show never explains how joey/chandler/Ross can afford those big houses.
Hi, Chandler and joey’flat is not that big, it was actually the joke between characters often and Chandler had a good job anyway. Ross was good with money and his parents favourite so I think he got more money from them.
Also worth remembering that except for Phoebe. All the characters on the show grew up upper class. Like top 5% upper class.
Also Phoebe lived with her grandmother in a small apartment until her grandmother died and she got roomamates.
They’re not all upper class, Joey starts as a small background / ad actor, Rachel and Phoebe do small jobs like waitress and massages - Phoebe living in the street as a kid comes up a few times. (well, Rachel is born rich but she starts the series getting cut off and left with nothing - after she dumps her dad’s credit cards she had) An episode has Joey, Phoebe, Rachel point out that they’re poor and often out of a job so they complain that they aren’t nearly as loaded as Chandler, Ross, Monica, and they have a hard time keeping up with their lifestyle. Also confirming Chandler, Ross, Monica are indeed well off. Later, Joey gets a good acting role, Rachel has a good job, and Phoebe gets a good place at some point.
Did any of us watch any of it?
Friends fucking sucked.
You okay?
Pretty weird to be so angry about an old TV show and to keep commenting in a thread about it.
You are right.
I was in a pissy mood and never saw what everyone else saw in friends. I could have expressed that differently.
Fair enough! These are trying times, and I have also been guilty of that shortcoming. Good on ya for owning up to it.
Even if that is your opinion, why share it? What value does that provide to anyone, including yourself.
Shitting on things for no reason stopped being popular after the 90s.
You’re right.
I quite like the way How I Met Your Mother handles this - the size of the apartments is the narrator misremembering. There’s an episode where the characters have been viewing a house in New Jersey - they return to the apartment and it’s portrayed as the size it realistically would be.
That would just be a dig on their intelligence. You can’t see the massive problem of not being able to afford housing? How can I relate to this character?
Some of that is due to the realities of filming in a stage made to look like an apartment as you need the space for the camera crew to fit. This everyone lives in massive places.
That’s completely not the reason. How other shows manage to show small apartments and poor people houses?
Showing regular people living in big apartment is more appealing to the public. Shows from the 70s or before were more realistic. Mary Tyler Moore was living in a small apartment and sleeping in the sofa despite having a regular job. In All in the family, they were financially struggling especially because of the 70s inflation. Lucy and her husband were living in a small apartment.
Things did change in the 80s and we started seeing families living in big houses with cars. Even Roseanne who normally depicted a working class family was living in a big house and could afford many things.
you think you know better than someone who worked on tv in NYC at that time?
Mary Tyler Moore’s show never had the expectation of holding six or more people in the same room like friends.
All in the family took place in a house. Im not sure how you miss this. It’s in the credits.
Lucy and her Husband never had more than a handful of people on screen at once. They dont need the space Friends does.
Friends needs a space for the main cast plus partners and that requires a larger space plus the ability to fit crew which requires large places. The bit about rent control makes perfect sense if you have experience with NYC real-estate.
There were many episodes where there were more than 6 people in I Love Lucy. I mentioned All in the Family because it was realistic and was showing people financially struggling even with two jobs. They lived in a house but it was small with one bathroom.
Even Seinfeld had a small apartment. Many other shows manage to show people living in small apartments. And even with rent control, it isn’t realistic at all.
So that is clearly not the real reason.
Again their living room had to fit six or more. There are episodes where they have six people in Lucy’s house but rarely is it more than four or five.
Seinfeld had 4 main cast and they rarely had anyone else in their places other than the main 4. No one needed to fit a dozen people in a room.
Were you renting living space in NYC in 1994? I was.
Do you know anyone with a ridiculous place because of rent control policies? I know several. Everything about the show makes sense within the context of the time once you realize that eight or so people need to fit on the stage in many scenes
So writers are like “we will write a sitcom about this poor family of 10. Let’s give them a big house to fit them all”. That is ridiculous.
I won’t continue debating with you. I am amazed at how are you trying to justify everything about the show. Actually you are like the ones I saw on the fan sub on Reddit.
They were like “How can we justify them having the place we know we need them to have?” and worked from there.
I know a guy living on Central Park West with 2000 sq ft two floor apartment with park views that was paying less than what I paid for 1k sq ft in the middle of Queens. That’s a nicer place in a better area than Friends had for less than 3k a month thirty years after the show all because of rent control.
We know they all came from money except Joey and Phoebe. They could also be getting money from family.
Never thought about this, that a really good input, thanks
NP,I was told the same thing by a camera guy back in the late 1990s about this exact show.
