25 years later, a new generation gets immersed in ‘Friends’

LOS ANGELES >> “Friends” is getting old. Its fans have never been younger.

As the sitcom about six twentysomethings marks its 25th anniversary on Sunday, it has spawned a devoted youthful viewership, especially among tween and teen girls who weren’t yet born when it went off the air in 2004.

In an era when everyone assumed they would move on to YouTube and Instagram video, young girls have embraced the series and its old-fashioned, studio-audience, sitcom format, bingeing its 10 seasons on Netflix through their tablets and phones, wearing T-shirts with the show’s logo and constantly quoting catch-phrases.

“It is old but you can’t tell that much when you’re watching,” said 15-yearold Sammy Joyce of Long Beach, California. “It’s too funny to care about how old it is.”

Some first hear about the show from Generation X parents who watched the initial NBC run, but the show has caught on mostly via word-of-mouth between friends.

“My friends all really liked it. They were all really into it and they would always be quoting it so I decided to give it a try,” said 15-year-old Adelaide Driver of Taos, New Mexico. “I kind of immediately was super into it.”

Lucia Mozingo, 10, of Long Beach says she’s been spreading her love for the show “like a disease” among her grade-school classmates. She and Sammy, who watches her after school, can mimic their way through entire episodes, sing every word to Phoebe’s song “Smelly Cat” and can do impressions of every major character and many minor ones.

The show has become almost a rite of passage in some circles, where their “Friends” phase is almost a coming of age.

For girls like Lucia, understanding the show’s adult-but-not-too-adult subject matter can feel like a step into sophistication.

“My parents showed me the show ‘Friends’ when I was 8, and I didn’t really get it, so I wasn’t really into it.”

Then, trying it again at 10, it all clicked, and she understood why Ross and Rachel got together, and why they broke up, and why they got back together again. “I just got it,” she said.” “Friends,” some fans said, is a piece of the past that allows them to fantasize about their future. They swoon at the notion of living in a big-city apartment with their best friend the way Courteney Cox’s Monica and Jennifer Anniston’s Rachel do, with two more friends across the hall like Matthew Perry’s Chandler and Matt LeBlanc’s Joey.

“I would love to live across the hall from my best friends,” said 12-year-old Imogen Schwartz of Glendale, California. “When you watch it you wish you had a Rachel and a Chandler and a Joey and everyone else.”

The characters also have fledgling careers that the girls can see themselves aspiring to.