Get To Know With Friends: Why It's Still America's Favorite Sitcom
(Get To Know With Friends: Why It's Still America's Favorite Sitcom /Image Credits: Advanced Television)

Friends Overview

Friends was a TV show that was very well known. Premiered in 1994, the TV show followed the lives of six friends such as a vain Rachel, a pretentious Ross, an uptight Monica, an insecure Chandler, a stupid Joey, and an eccentric Phoebe, who were around their relationships when they navigated life in their twenties and thirties in New York City. Their floppy haircuts, enormous phones, and quaint dating rituals belong to a distant past, in which coffee was seldom pumpkin-spiced and people jotted down their contact details on napkins.

Viewers Reaction

Plenty of sitcoms before and since have relied on such a clash of personalities to make the viewers chuckle, where Friends stands out is its ability to make viewers care about those characters and amass a huge audience. In its ten seasons, viewers can see the characters in Friends grew up and changed, facing challenges such as breakups, job changes, and even marriage. Until now, Friends still continues to be a beloved TV show that people of all ages enjoy watching.

Cultural Impact

Get To Know With Friends: Why It's Still America's Favorite Sitcom
(Get To Know With Friends: Why It's Still America's Favorite Sitcom/ Image Credits: BBC)

Friends also had an enormous impact on popular culture and society as a whole. Friends popularity in the 1990s and early 2000s and its catchphrases became part of the lexicon for an entire generation and influenced the way people talked and interacted with each other. Not only that, some aspects of Friends have aged badly. A few jokes about gay characters now seem clumsily homophobic, and Chandler’s father, a trans woman, is often used as a punchline. But the warmth that the writing brings to viewers in search of light entertainment after an enervating day has endured.

Moral Messages

One of the most important aspects of Friends was the many life lessons and moral messages that viewers can take away from the show. It was very clear that Friends teaches the viewers the value of true friendship, that no matter what life throws, friends can help you from any obstacle. Not only that, the other great moral message of Friends is its idealistic portrait of 20-something life. If you realized, The theme tune claims to be about a quarter-life crisis. Yet none of the characters spends much time at work, or worries too keenly about their income. All of the characters have exciting romantic lives and with much funnier and more attractive partners than the audience could ever hope for.

Being Legacy

In the end, Friends was a TV show that has had an enormous impact on popular culture and society from its portrayal of love, friendship, and growing up has resonated with audiences for over two decades and continues to do so today. Despite its end nearly two decades ago, Friends legacy has continued through syndication and streaming, allowing new generations of fans to discover the show and fall in love with its characters. For proof of the legacy of Friends, in late 2018, Netflix paid the programme’s owner, WarnerMedia, about $100m for a year right to streams.