F.R.I.E.N.D.S: From Overrated to Over the Moon!

 From Overrated to Over the Moon! 

There are mainly two categories of people in this world: One, the die-hard fans of F.R.I.E.N.D.S and the other who thinks it’s overrated.

And no matter which team you’re on, I bet you haven’t stopped hearing about this. The most awaited F.R.I.E.N.D.S reunion woohooo!!!! 

Image Credits: India.com

How you doin'?

I’m writing this to share my transformation journey, of how an ignorant maniac who once thought that F.R.I.E.N.D.S was overrated, cried her eyes out while watching the reunion. 

So during February 2020, HBO announced the reunion of our favorite and classic sit-com series F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Everyone around me and most of my friends were super excited about this. When this announcement happened Coronavirus had just started to visit India and lockdown was not yet declared. Those were the good old days, I was in Mangalore attending college and stressing over assignments, internals, presentation, and all the jazz!

My two best friends were forcing me to watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S for a long time and I used to shamelessly say that it’s overrated and ignore it. Don’t judge! but until the first week of April 2020, I had not even considered watching this iconic show. 

I had lived in a boarding school for half of my school life, so I was not much familiar with sitcoms, marvel series, star wars, or any other hot-shot entertainment. In fact, I used to watch cartoon network, POGO and Nick Jr even in my PU days (to be honest even now I enjoy watching kids’ shows). So without knowing much about the series just to fit in one or the other group I landed on the opinion saying that F.R.I.E.N.D.S is overrated.

Finally, on a bright sunny lockdown-driven day when I felt bored, miserable, and clueless about life, I started watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S. With the same illusions in my mind, I started watching the show and felt the first episode was boring. But my friend just forced me to finish the first season, as I didn’t have much work during the lockdown, so I ended up watching all 24 episodes. I remember taking 4 whole days to complete the first season. After that, I binge-watched all 10 seasons; that is 234 episodes in 3 weeks. And I re-watched it again and most of the time it was just the episodes that I liked. Today, I want to officially apologize to everyone for ever saying that this show was overrated. The first week of April 2020, marks one of the best decisions of my life, and will be remembered as the time I chose to give F.R.I.E.N.D.S. a chance!

Image credits: Google

So no one told you life was gonna be this way...

I want to share a small incident of how I got my first internship because of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Between the months of May-June, 2020 I applied for an internship. Along with various career-related questions they had asked about ‘ your favorite show, favorite character, and pros/cons about your favorite character’. 

When I saw these questions I just thought “Whoa! How cool is this… I hope I get a chance to work with this company”. As expected, my answer was all related to F.R.I.E.N.D.S. And eventually, I got a callback, and to my surprise, the interviewee said that he was also a F.R.I.E.N.D.S. fan! And yeah, that was it!  I got into the coolest internship in town (PS: I did pretty well for other questions and even answered them all during a telephonic interview. Ahem! Not to brag). I started as a Campus ambassador in Viral Fission, a youth marketing company, and had the opportunity to work with some crazy brands.

 To all the people who have not watched F.R.I.E.N.D.S. yet, but managed to have some lovely comments about the show: “It is not up to the mark”, “it’s bad”, “it’s not funny,” and “it’s just overrated”, or just a plain simple “I don’t like it”; my suggestion is please watch it once. If you choose not to watch, kindly don’t share your opinion about it. 

Over the years I have learned it’s okay to stand out. It’s okay if you don’t have access to watch the series or you just don’t want to watch it. But don’t talk bad about the show just to feel good about yourself, because hundreds of people have put their heart and soul to make this happen. And it’s made millions of people smile, laugh and cry together, and will continue to, for decades to come! 

And for the people who have watched F.R.I.E.N.D.S and have genuinely not liked the show, I don’t have anything to say. It’s your opinion and I respect it.

Have I said sorry enough times already? Because ever since I watched F.R.I.E.N.D.S, this show has been a part of my life. Today I clap as soon as I hear ‘So no one told you life was gonna be this way…’, I still think about the first episode where Rachel enters the café in her iconic wedding dress! And no character in this world can make me laugh as much as Chandler. Lastly, I would like to thank my best friends Soundarya and Mufidha for making me watch this classic iconic sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S. 

I’m soulfully content after watching the reunion, hope you are too. No spoilers here! Only good vibes! 

Until next time, smile over silly things, feel proud about who you are and stay soulful. 

P.S. I’ll be there for you ❤️