Supposedly, SATC irritated actual New Yorkers because it caused The City to be inundated with young women moving to NYC to imitate the foursome, to the point of walking four abreast on the sidewalk, 'cause that's what they did on the show. Manhattan sidewalks are too crowded for that sort of thing most of the time.
I think the appeal of rewatching Girls is that it actively trashes Millennials and all the things we believed were important. It was never meant to be an aspirational show, even if we thought it was at the time. Lena Dunham was making fun of Millennials in 2012 the way Zoomers make fun of us on TikTok now. It just took 10+ years for the joke to land.
I've wondered about this as well, a bit more looking in the teen spaces. The highest rated WB show was 7th Heaven, and there was no nostalgia for it even before it was tainted by one of the main actors. Thinking of something like Glee, which had a massive fandom, it doesn't carry much nostalgia either and I wonder if it's because the fandom experience seems to have been universally awful. There's something about the combination of what you felt at the time that relates back to the nostalgia-likelihood. I feel like the experience of watching/discussing/dreaming of SATC elicits strong enough memories to deliver, despite the atrocious final film. (Or I'm entirely wrong, who knows.)
Yeah, Glee was so big 10-15 years ago but if people talk about it now, it's all in hushed tones. It's gotta be because of how many fucked up things have happened with the cast and the stories from behind the scenes.
many former Gleeks (the community i represent) revisited the show during the pandemic years and found it amusing how incredibly out of pocket it was and so many young people were lip syncing the quinn-santana "YOU GOT A BOOB JOB" fight on tiktok. Glee is a show that is uniquely offensive/out of touch but also so in on the joke. As you suggest, I don't think the fandom is nostalgic, but we're kinda like oh right... no wonder my sense of humor is like this. i used to watch glee 😭
Thank you for sharing that! It's wild how similar feverish fandom experiences can be--
the joke about being entitled to financial compensation, I've seen that elsewhere and have *felt* that myself. In 1D the joke was always that our therapy should be paid for.
i loved this so much! thank you for mentioning me!! i think what SATC more than anything was articulate the nuances of realistic female friendships (i.e. running errands, hanging out at each others apartments etc.) while still imbedding a sense of aspiration and glamour that feels just barely attainable- no other show has done it better in my opinion!!!
Thanks Emily! I definitely appreciate the friendship aspect too. There really is a sense that when things go well for one of them, the others are genuinely happy. Contrast that to its Millennial successor, Girls, in which all the so-called friends have thinly veiled contempt for each other lol.
Great piece Chris. Really fascinating stuff. TV shows are so on a factory line that it feels like shows, however popular, are put out and then forgotten - people tend not to watch recent shows in the same way they watch "old movies." I think it's mostly related to the planned obsolescence of pop culture, but there's no real reason not to return to the old shows the same way people read books and watch movies over time.
Nice to think about The Marriage Plot again! My problem with it was that I didn't fully buy Leonard's manic depression - felt more like the kind of thing he'd read about in a book than really lived in. But it was a strong novel - nice to see it get some love! What became of Eugenides btw? It seems like it's been a long time since he's published. He was considered to be a really major writer.
Thanks, Sam! I see your point about old TV being more replaceable and forgettable than old movies, but I think that's partly because of difficulty of access. With streaming, however, certain shows like The Sopranos and Seinfeld have lingered on in ways that even the best movies from that era have not (e.g. Titanic). Of course, TV has an unfair advantage in that they provide tonnes more material than movies since they run for so much longer.
Luckily, I've never had manic depression or known anyone who has, so I can't speak to the believability of how Leonard's condition was written. Regardless though, it was quietly (as opposed to glamorously) tragic and made me fear it. As for Eugenides, I figure he's earned the right to loaf around a bit haha since he's written two landmark novels of the last 30 years (I should re-read The Virgin Suicides because it didn't leave much of an impression on me the first time, and I couldn't get past the first bit of Middlesex and don't have much interest in revisiting).
Such an interesting read! I’d argue Gilmore Girls is a more self-serious show that is still very nostalgic and rewatchable (probably because it has been streaming on Netflix since it became a streaming platform). I see Lorelai outfit recreations or Rory and Jess fan videos set to T Swift songs all over my Tik Tok page. Unlike the appeal of SATC and Friends, Gilmore Girls provides a dream of the opposite environment: small-town comfort and charm. As this decade progresses I also wonder if other sitcoms like New Girl and How I Met Your Mother will become nostalgia bait.
Yes, the persistence of Gilmore Girls is interesting. In addition to the small-town charm, it probably also appeals to the more academic and literary side of viewers, whereas SATC and Friends appeal to the partying and dating side.
Another interesting thing is how Gossip Girl has remained more relevant than The OC, even though The OC is a far better show. There was that GG reboot, as bad as it was. But there's been no such talk of an OC reboot. You'd think The OC's 2000s-ness would be prime material for a nostalgia reboot, but for some reason, there doesn't seem to be much of that hunger.
I love Suits, but moreso before Gina Torres takes a hit for Michael and leaves the firm (and I loathed Michael the entire time I watched the show). And she had an unsuccessful spin off :(
Also, I listened to Middle Sex on audio and loved the narrator. The book itself was fine, but I dont think I would've finished it had I read it on my kindle.
I am fascinated by nostalgia. I don't think I really experience it. I don't miss the past. But I saw the fan service Ghostbusters film that came out a few years ago and loved it. Not the movie itself, but how much it reminded me that I do love Ghostbusters. I even changed my ringtone to the theme song I was so overcome.
I think Masters of None is really boring. 🙃 Aziz isnt very interesting in that show. I only liked the last season because Lena Waite focused it away from him and onto herself. Though he does appear in one dinner scene that I liked.
Nice piece. Have you seen “Kicking and Screaming” (the Baumbach one, not the Will Ferrell one)? Recommend it if you want to continue your nostalgia tour.
Thanks! I did watch Kicking and Screaming many years ago but I hated it lol. Thought the main characters were so boring yet also very irritating. Maybe it's worth another go.
Eugenides didn't actually go to college with David Foster Wallace; he did go to college with Rick Moody and Donald Antrim (speaking of literary coteries...)
I didn't watch GIRLS until the pandemic and thought it was sublime. I liked the fact that folks were having a hard time. Seemed real. That episode where they go to meet the dad in upstate New York is one of the best eps of TV I've ever seen.
Master of None was completely insufferable. It wasn't a show. It was a little cultural piety lesson in 30 minutes. No thank you.
I like Master of None quite a lot, but "comedy that wants to say something important" is usually not going to lend itself to nostalgic rewatches, the same way that "comedy just trying to be silly" or even "drama that knows how to use comedic relief" will.
You notice that pop culture revivals are usually a pale imitation of the original? The tropes gone stale, the jokes already told before, the characters going through the motions for one more payday.
Their fifteen minutes are up, best to leave some things in the past.
Supposedly, SATC irritated actual New Yorkers because it caused The City to be inundated with young women moving to NYC to imitate the foursome, to the point of walking four abreast on the sidewalk, 'cause that's what they did on the show. Manhattan sidewalks are too crowded for that sort of thing most of the time.
Oh yeah I hate those, marching in horizontal lines as if they're redcoats
I think the appeal of rewatching Girls is that it actively trashes Millennials and all the things we believed were important. It was never meant to be an aspirational show, even if we thought it was at the time. Lena Dunham was making fun of Millennials in 2012 the way Zoomers make fun of us on TikTok now. It just took 10+ years for the joke to land.
I was hating Millennials before it was cool
I've wondered about this as well, a bit more looking in the teen spaces. The highest rated WB show was 7th Heaven, and there was no nostalgia for it even before it was tainted by one of the main actors. Thinking of something like Glee, which had a massive fandom, it doesn't carry much nostalgia either and I wonder if it's because the fandom experience seems to have been universally awful. There's something about the combination of what you felt at the time that relates back to the nostalgia-likelihood. I feel like the experience of watching/discussing/dreaming of SATC elicits strong enough memories to deliver, despite the atrocious final film. (Or I'm entirely wrong, who knows.)
Yeah, Glee was so big 10-15 years ago but if people talk about it now, it's all in hushed tones. It's gotta be because of how many fucked up things have happened with the cast and the stories from behind the scenes.
many former Gleeks (the community i represent) revisited the show during the pandemic years and found it amusing how incredibly out of pocket it was and so many young people were lip syncing the quinn-santana "YOU GOT A BOOB JOB" fight on tiktok. Glee is a show that is uniquely offensive/out of touch but also so in on the joke. As you suggest, I don't think the fandom is nostalgic, but we're kinda like oh right... no wonder my sense of humor is like this. i used to watch glee 😭
I wrote more about this here: https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/glee/glee-legacy
Thank you for sharing that! It's wild how similar feverish fandom experiences can be--
the joke about being entitled to financial compensation, I've seen that elsewhere and have *felt* that myself. In 1D the joke was always that our therapy should be paid for.
i loved this so much! thank you for mentioning me!! i think what SATC more than anything was articulate the nuances of realistic female friendships (i.e. running errands, hanging out at each others apartments etc.) while still imbedding a sense of aspiration and glamour that feels just barely attainable- no other show has done it better in my opinion!!!
Thanks Emily! I definitely appreciate the friendship aspect too. There really is a sense that when things go well for one of them, the others are genuinely happy. Contrast that to its Millennial successor, Girls, in which all the so-called friends have thinly veiled contempt for each other lol.
Great piece Chris. Really fascinating stuff. TV shows are so on a factory line that it feels like shows, however popular, are put out and then forgotten - people tend not to watch recent shows in the same way they watch "old movies." I think it's mostly related to the planned obsolescence of pop culture, but there's no real reason not to return to the old shows the same way people read books and watch movies over time.
Nice to think about The Marriage Plot again! My problem with it was that I didn't fully buy Leonard's manic depression - felt more like the kind of thing he'd read about in a book than really lived in. But it was a strong novel - nice to see it get some love! What became of Eugenides btw? It seems like it's been a long time since he's published. He was considered to be a really major writer.
Thanks, Sam! I see your point about old TV being more replaceable and forgettable than old movies, but I think that's partly because of difficulty of access. With streaming, however, certain shows like The Sopranos and Seinfeld have lingered on in ways that even the best movies from that era have not (e.g. Titanic). Of course, TV has an unfair advantage in that they provide tonnes more material than movies since they run for so much longer.
Luckily, I've never had manic depression or known anyone who has, so I can't speak to the believability of how Leonard's condition was written. Regardless though, it was quietly (as opposed to glamorously) tragic and made me fear it. As for Eugenides, I figure he's earned the right to loaf around a bit haha since he's written two landmark novels of the last 30 years (I should re-read The Virgin Suicides because it didn't leave much of an impression on me the first time, and I couldn't get past the first bit of Middlesex and don't have much interest in revisiting).
Such an interesting read! I’d argue Gilmore Girls is a more self-serious show that is still very nostalgic and rewatchable (probably because it has been streaming on Netflix since it became a streaming platform). I see Lorelai outfit recreations or Rory and Jess fan videos set to T Swift songs all over my Tik Tok page. Unlike the appeal of SATC and Friends, Gilmore Girls provides a dream of the opposite environment: small-town comfort and charm. As this decade progresses I also wonder if other sitcoms like New Girl and How I Met Your Mother will become nostalgia bait.
Thanks Helen!
Yes, the persistence of Gilmore Girls is interesting. In addition to the small-town charm, it probably also appeals to the more academic and literary side of viewers, whereas SATC and Friends appeal to the partying and dating side.
Another interesting thing is how Gossip Girl has remained more relevant than The OC, even though The OC is a far better show. There was that GG reboot, as bad as it was. But there's been no such talk of an OC reboot. You'd think The OC's 2000s-ness would be prime material for a nostalgia reboot, but for some reason, there doesn't seem to be much of that hunger.
I love Suits, but moreso before Gina Torres takes a hit for Michael and leaves the firm (and I loathed Michael the entire time I watched the show). And she had an unsuccessful spin off :(
Also, I listened to Middle Sex on audio and loved the narrator. The book itself was fine, but I dont think I would've finished it had I read it on my kindle.
I am fascinated by nostalgia. I don't think I really experience it. I don't miss the past. But I saw the fan service Ghostbusters film that came out a few years ago and loved it. Not the movie itself, but how much it reminded me that I do love Ghostbusters. I even changed my ringtone to the theme song I was so overcome.
I think Masters of None is really boring. 🙃 Aziz isnt very interesting in that show. I only liked the last season because Lena Waite focused it away from him and onto herself. Though he does appear in one dinner scene that I liked.
Nice piece. Have you seen “Kicking and Screaming” (the Baumbach one, not the Will Ferrell one)? Recommend it if you want to continue your nostalgia tour.
Thanks! I did watch Kicking and Screaming many years ago but I hated it lol. Thought the main characters were so boring yet also very irritating. Maybe it's worth another go.
If you didn’t like it then, maybe not worth it. But if nothing else it fits in thematically with the Eugenides novel and Metropolitan.
Eugenides didn't actually go to college with David Foster Wallace; he did go to college with Rick Moody and Donald Antrim (speaking of literary coteries...)
I'm going to read The Ice Storm very soon
I might need to do a Master of None hatewatch.
Maybe I should do a hate(re)watch too, though I recently posted about how I'm trying to do less of this lol
Just one episode.
I didn't watch GIRLS until the pandemic and thought it was sublime. I liked the fact that folks were having a hard time. Seemed real. That episode where they go to meet the dad in upstate New York is one of the best eps of TV I've ever seen.
Master of None was completely insufferable. It wasn't a show. It was a little cultural piety lesson in 30 minutes. No thank you.
Nice post. SATC should be considered in light of the later lament of Candace Bushnell, the writer of the underlying material, who turned into a cat lady: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-7295837/Sex-City-writer-admits-regrets-choosing-career-having-children.html
I like Master of None quite a lot, but "comedy that wants to say something important" is usually not going to lend itself to nostalgic rewatches, the same way that "comedy just trying to be silly" or even "drama that knows how to use comedic relief" will.
Great piece! I started The Marriage Plot years ago but gave up because it felt a bit academic to me, will try again based on your recommendation.
You notice that pop culture revivals are usually a pale imitation of the original? The tropes gone stale, the jokes already told before, the characters going through the motions for one more payday.
Their fifteen minutes are up, best to leave some things in the past.