The first thing I feel whenever I see the “Friends” logo is exactly what we’re missing in today’s day and age: a proper good set design, a super lax and totally modern-qualitative zeitgeist, and most importantly, a meaningful culture within a friend group. But now that the 90s through 2004 are long gone, where are we now? And who stole my record player?
Often times, myself and many others may experience moments throughout our everyday lives where we notice that “it quite isn’t how it once was” or “things are just plain different now.” We might all feel that at this point in our lives, everything should be nothing less than exactly awesome.
Yes, awesome. Why does it not feel like this? We should figure out and be able to get to the bottom of why the whole “Friends vibe” has dissipated. This could be the start of solving that mystery. Sure, this is just a small publication in our school’s newspaper, but Montclair State University is home to 20,022 students. For all we know, this could be the fork in the road we’ve all been waiting for. But I know it’ll take much more than that.
In practical terms, I believe we will need mutual compassion to fuel a collective ambition to establish a better social biome. People who can recall the era might easily be able to remember a time of absolute awesomeness in its purest form. Truthfully, and I speak on behalf of my peers and the greater community, we’d all quite prefer the remedy- something everyone could agree on.
What I think made the 90s and early 2000s actually good could simply just be an awesome art and social biome. What made it awesome, you may ask? I think it’s easygoing behavior, which led to art that we came to accept as well-mannered and “good.” As a result, this helped draw the social lines we all kind of need.
The theme of art and music as with the given era featured exactly that. Just watch “Friends” for example. The theme was friends living collectively, which was portrayed as a “good life.” An idea as awesome as that naturally deserves it’s own show. Such a biome, in real life, is popularly established by music, film and television. It kind of left us all a little bit imposed and now I kind of see the latter.
Do we not have any more thoughtful writers and producers left in the “good ol’ Hollywood trailers” back in California doing their best to make the most out of the entertainment business?
Or, have we simply just made a series of really good mistakes and have thus moved on from it, accidentally?
We as college students can only do so much to influence greater culture outside of our school, but that doesn’t mean we cannot collectively “do our part” in establishing an awesome experience. The clear way forward on how to achieve that is honestly doing your part: yes you! To make that which you can control, actually worth something.
Something good that is!
Conclusively, maybe the most we can do is be objective. If we’re honest with ourselves, maybe then we could see what exactly it is we, and our shows, just lack overall.
We’re missing awesome, or in plain English, a cultural theme that demonstrates what it is to have a practical friend group. A friend group with good people, which lends to exemplary culture. That being said, the next time you see your friends or go out to eat with them, consider how you can make the most of it.
