All the Lies Sitcoms Have Sold Us About Adulthood
Sitcoms have fed the American public a great number of lies. If there was a ranking, first would probably be George W. Bush and WMDs, and second would definitely be sitcoms. In a r/Sitcoms Reddit thread, one Redditor dropped the prompt to share about what sitcom lies mislead us most about adulthood. The initial example was from the show more divorced from our current reality than any other: Friends.
In Friends, everyone was eating breakfast with each other before work, all the time. Waking up, having a full banter session, having a mug of coffee, having a little more banter. Growing up, this led me to believe that there was going to be ample time to go to my friend’s house (very close to mine), enjoy some eggs (reasonably priced) and have a full conversation before my commute (short).
“I remember being in high school, watching Friends and thinking — I can’t wait to be an adult so I have that much free time,” one Redditor wrote. “Spoiler: That didn’t play out well for me.”
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That surely wasn’t the only lie Friends told either; midday coffee-shop meetings with friends, affordable New York City apartments, dating within your friend group without too much fallout — the list goes on and on. However, if Friends was only the only sitcom dramatically misrepresenting the average life, I’d probably feel less shell-shocked by how often my sweaty ass was peeling off of plastic seats after an unairconditioned 40-minute commute at the ass crack of dawn, instead of sipping on orange juice while doing my quick walk to the office.
One common trope that was a let down: employment. “Getting jobs,” another commenter wrote. “I assumed it would be super easy based on how often sitcom characters can find new jobs and get job offers from random interactions with strangers.”
New Girl is a sitcom that definitely does this; Jess (Zoe Deschanel) is constantly losing and getting jobs, seemingly by happenstance. When I began my own post-college job search, I assumed it would be similarly serendipitous. It was not.
“Adults have a group of close friends that they see every day and do everything with, and never hang out with anyone else outside that group,” another commenter wrote.
This is true of just about every sitcom I can think of. Obviously it comes down to casting practicalities and storyline logistics. But still, I think most of us grew up thinking there would be like four to five people we did everything with, all the time. A sort of social consistency. That’s what happened on How I Met Your Mother, Seinfeld, Girlfriends, Boy Meets World, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Workaholics, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, etc.
In general, life on sitcoms — old, recent and new — all distort the realities of modern life. No one wants to go on vacation with their coworkers, no one runs out the door before eating their freshly made breakfast (again, the price of eggs!), and very few of us are getting away with meeting friends at coffee shops during the work day. But hey, who says your favorite show can’t be aspirational?
