June 13, 2024
Hello and welcome to The Society Newsletter!
Every week we're publishing this newsletter exclusively for you all at The Society Premium level where Chelsea shares her personal thoughts on a different topic as well as her latest Flea Market Finds.
This week's installment was exceptionally written by TFD creative director, Holly Trantham.
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❤️ TFD
By TFD’s creative director, Holly Trantham
I’m thrilled to be taking over today’s premium member newsletter while Chelsea is on a much-needed vacation! She’ll be back with her next installment and Facebook marketplace finds next week 🙂
When we found out the original Sex and The City series would be coming (returning?) to Netflix this spring, we immediately knew we had to talk about it on a podcast for our members. Those who’ve been following TFD for a long time are no stranger to the ways we’ve discussed the show on our channels, from dissecting Carrie’s role as the original influencer to Chelsea preaching the money gospel of Miranda in the first TFD book. Now that an entirely new audience was going to be introduced to the world of the fab four, and that we’d inevitably be indulging in a rewatch ourselves, we couldn’t not revisit it. And a podcast where we got to do a deep-dive on each girlie? We were all too excited to take on (and I truly hope you love it).
The interesting thing about cultural touchstones like Sex and The City, especially ones centered on decidedly-adult women viewed during one’s adolescence-to-young-adult years, is that our relationship with them inevitably changes as we get older. I’ve rewatched SATC many times over the span of a decade, but I’m just now the same age as most of the characters at the outset of the series. It is impossible not to compare my life to theirs, especially as someone who lives in the same city. (Granted, I live in Brooklyn, and Carrie would probably still have something snarky to say about crossing a bridge to go home after a night out in the Village). It’s just not like watching other nostalgic properties that have a chokehold on our generation, where the characters were our age at the initial time of viewing. Is the plot of The Parent Trap profoundly unhinged? Absolutely, but watching it now, I don’t feel anything more complex than my 10-year-old self did, praying that her summer camp experience would also end in being whisked away to a posh London townhouse.
Watching Carrie et al as an early-twenty-something who’d just moved to the city felt like looking into a crystal ball of what my future here could potentially look like. But watching them now, as a 32-year-old who has now lived here for over a decade, it feels impossible to not pick apart these people’s habits and existences within New York, both the realistic and overly romanticized parts. I can’t help but wonder (sorry, I had to) if my younger self really thought this was a realistic depiction of 30s life in New York City, but I can say with certainty that my own life here — one that I love so much — could not look more different from what was depicted in this show.
For one thing, I perhaps thought going out for drinks would be a more regular occurrence. Not only do I drink quite a bit less than I did in my early twenties, which was still probably less than what was normalized on SATC, a big portion of my friends are either sober or sober-curious. Drinking just isn’t a big part of my life, and it’s largely saved for moments I’m truly excited for (the glass of red wine I’m planning to have while watching a philharmonic performance in the park, for instance). I know that two cosmopolitans in quick succession would send me into an annoying hangover if not remedied almost immediately. But more to the point, the cost of cocktails here — no matter the borough, honestly — is a prohibitive factor to going out multiple times a week, at least for anyone on any semblance of a budget who also wants to spend money on things other than going out all the time. SATC simply doesn’t depict the consequences, both health-related and financial, of over-imbibing on a regular basis.
Watching this show also makes you think it is easy, if not downright organic, to find yourself mingling with men of a certain income bracket. With a few notable exceptions, almost every male romantic interest on SATC is wealthy, many coming from New England/Mid Atlantic old money. These circles absolutely exist here, but I presume it takes work to insert yourself into them, because I certainly never have. Perhaps it is believable that Carrie would know the “right” places to hang out after spending most of her twenties and early thirties in the city’s dating scene, especially in the pre-app era. But I’ve never run in these circles, and I don’t really know anyone who has. My husband and I make very good money compared to America at large. But you have to be really rich to feel rich in New York — and those people have a wildly different experience of the city than I’ve had.
Another image that shows like SATC implanted in my brain is the grown woman happily walking home with her arms full of shopping bags. Growing up, the spending spree was definitely something I thought would be a much more common experience in my adult life. But as a real-life 30-something, I truly can’t think of a time this has actually happened. Being used to living on a budget means shopping just isn’t a hobby. I rarely go to stores without a specific objective, and even still, I’m pretty adamant about researching every item before I buy it. To my 22-year-old self, this probably sounds painfully dreary. But my 32-year-old self is actually thrilled to be living a much less materialistic life than the ones depicted on the television shows of my youth. I certainly still battle the occasional ill-advised impulse purchase — I literally just talked myself down from clicking “buy” on a pair of adorable-but-pricey lavender hiking shorts — but it’s nothing compared to absentmindedly blowing $40,000 on Manolos.
SATC, Friends, Living Single, and plenty of other nostalgic shows definitely cemented the idea of the core friend group in my mind. I think I always assumed that I would have this tight-knit, consistent group of my closest friends to get brunch with every weekend. But, at least for me, that is not how life works. Everyone is too busy to commit to brunch at the same location each week, for one thing. I also don’t have just one core group of friends. Most of my social life is spent in one-on-one situations, which I’ve found I heavily prefer to group hangouts. I have fewer friendships than I maybe once thought I would have, but the ones I have are very close, and that has ultimately become a source of comfort.
Lastly, shows like SATC approach money as merely a plot device. Carrie’s enormous apartment problem is fixed in the span of two episodes, first with Aidan buying it for her when her rental unit was being turned into a condo, then when Charlotte ultimately forked over her old engagement ring so Carrie could cover the down payment when her own engagement went south. Even very fortunate homebuyers in New York don’t experience that kind of overnight deus ex machina; a parent shilling out a huge, gifted down payment still comes with a mountain of paperwork and a months-long waiting period. Getting to talk about money on these shows is fun because in real life, Carrie would be a humongous mess who definitely would have owed back rent in order to maintain her extravagant lifestyle. But it’s also akin to watching reality TV about rich people: Carrie Bradshaw, like the Kardashians, doesn’t really have to worry about money, and if she does, it’s only for an episode or two. It’s not real life — but, I guess, what fun would it be if it was?