Why “Friends” is still so popular.

Friends is a terrible show about insufferable people I’d hate in real life (except maybe Phoebe), and though it wasn’t a simpler time as this article styles it to be, the 90s was a hopeful time. Sure, it might’ve been false hope — but you don’t know that when you’re living it.

There was really no such thing as social networking and the sociality destruction that caused. Surveillance was still relatively minimal. The internet and browsers worked correctly. But most of all, I think it was the hope.

Even Gen Zers who weren’t even alive when the show began its long run can detect the great expectations we had then and yearn for that which they’ve never experienced. I understand perfectly. Though I am not nostalgic for the 90s, I do miss that sense of the future being unbounded, that we could and would create something better.

Now we know that we cannot and will not and that’s a severe blow indeed.