People are itching to create the Gen Z version of Friends. Here's five reasons it's impossible

The legacy of Friends can be seen in a new wave of US sitcoms about twenty-something pals hitting the small screen. But, unlike the classic show, they're struggling to make a mark.

No sitcom has defined its era quite like Friends, the '90s show about six twenty-something friends living in Manhattan which became the most popular portrait of Gen X (people born between 1965 and 1980). Across all ten seasons from 1994 to 2004, the show's average live viewer ratings never dropped below 20 million. The series finale alone drew around 52.5 million American viewers, making it the most-watched television episode of the 2000s. 

Beyond the numbers, Friends had a huge cultural impact. It birthed haircut styles ("The Rachel"), fashion trends (slip dresses) and catchphrases (Joey's "How you doin'?"). And its popularity is enduring: in UCLA's Teens and Screens 2025 Report, Friends ranks 16th on a list of Gen Z's favourite films or TV shows, alongside current hits like K-Pop Demon Hunters and The Summer I Turned Pretty. 

But is there a Friends equivalent for Gen Z (people born between 1997 and 2012) that can speak to their own lives? A wave of sitcoms have been trying to replicate its vibe, zoning in on the messy personal and professional lives of twenty-somethings today.

There's been Mindy Kaling's Not Suitable For Work, about five recent graduates in Manhattan, while the second season of FX's chaotic but cosy Adults premieres today, centring on a house-share of another quintet across the water in Queens. Beyond the Big Apple, other shows following a similar Friends-style template have included Kaling's show The Sex Lives of College Girls about four college friends in Vermont, and HBO's irreverent I Love LA: internet "It Girl" Rachel Sennott's show about West Coast wannabe influencers. 

However, none of these shows have really made a strong impression. Not Suitable For Work premiered in June to modest viewership and lukewarm reviews, and this week was officially cancelled, while The Sex Lives of College Girls was cancelled in 2025 after three seasons. Adults and I Love LA have both earned second seasons, without meriting anything like the cultural capital of either Friends or today's "watercooler" shows like The White Lotus or The Pitt. 

Here are five reasons why trying to make "the new Friends" seems to be an impossible dream:

Gen Z sitcoms are competing for attention against a vast content pool and the internet's endless scrollability. When Friends debuted in 1994, the absence of multiple screen distractions no doubt worked to its benefit. According to Activate's 2026 Media Outlook Report, 43% of Gen Z prefer YouTube or social video platforms over paid streaming (37%) or traditional TV (12%). The second a show isn't enriching, personalised algorithms can immediately serve something more dopamine-hitting. 

Additionally, where traditional network sitcoms had over 20 episodes per season – in part so they could be profitably syndicated to other TV stations for daily re-runs – modern sitcoms generally have far less. All of the new Friends-style shows have between just eight and ten episodes per series – which means there's not a lot of time to actually hang out, let alone fall in love, with these new TV friendship groups.

Another persistent flaw in the Gen Z sitcom is the distance between their subjects and the show creators, who are invariably millennials or older. "There haven't been too many Gen Z TV writers who have been able to break through yet," entertainment journalist Max Gao points out. "Until more of those writers are given a platform to tell their own stories, it may be difficult to capture what it is like to be a young person in today's social and political climate."

Friends was also written by people a generation above its characters, but depicting today's faster-moving youth culture is undeniably more challenging.

For example, The Sex Lives of College Girls' attempts at Gen Z vernacular ("I'm taking screenshots, but with my brain") consistently missed the mark, feeling both forced and passé. Not Suitable For Work also falls flat, with youth slang ("facts" and "unhinged") that seems contrived in the way it lands.

Viewers tend to watch sitcoms as a form of comfort TV – and Friends certainly fulfilled that role. But providing comfort viewing is a struggle when Gen Z's current situation is anything but comfortable. "This generation has come through a pandemic, economic scarcity and a political environment that is combative and they don't trust," as Dr Yalda T Uhls, Founder and CEO of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers at UCLA, tells the BBC.

In the US, Gen Z are experiencing the highest unemployment rate of any demographic: entry-level opportunities are narrowing and AI is slimming the workforce. Compare this to the state of play of Gen X when Friends aired: they entered the workforce amid tech-boom optimism and polled as "remarkably optimistic as individuals". 

This means these sitcoms' creators must walk a difficult tightrope: translate Gen Z's volatile coming-of-age experience to the screen without becoming too bleak. Not Suitable for Work motioned at Gen Z's employment despair in an episode where wannabe actor Kel's (Nicholas Duvernay) exciting audition turned out to be an AI motion-capture project. Otherwise, the show felt dishonestly untethered from today's harsh realities. 

Season two of Adults does include the professional trials facing Gen Z, which were absent from season one – in particular, Billie (Lucy Freyer) faces a season-long struggle to secure any full-time employment.

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These sitcoms have also taken mixed approaches towards Gen Z's problems around housing. Not Suitable For Work's characters lived in tastefully decorated neighbouring Manhattan apartments, just like Friends, but rather than being benignly aspirational, as it was in Friends' case, that now feels like an insulting fantasy. Adults offers a more astute look at Gen Z's lowered housing expectations, with all five friends squeezed into Samir's (Malik Elassal) three-bedroom childhood home.

The Gen Z sitcom also faces challenges in being relatable to a broad audience. According to Pew Research Center, Gen Z Americans are "more racially and ethnically diverse than any previous generation". Because of this, Gao says: "it can be difficult to encompass the diversity of those experiences in a single sitcom." Contrast this with Friends, where the characters existed in a more homogeneous social circle of whiteness and heteronormativity – which was then the mainstream TV default.

Sex Lives of College Girls framed differences in race, ethnicity and sexual identity as non-issues, which felt shallow. By contrast, Adults really embraces its diverse cast and their distinct individualities, from the sexually fluid Paul Baker (Jack Innanen) to the social cause-hopping wild-child Issa (Amita Rao). But in sitcom terms, that can leave it feeling unfocused.

Today's Friends-style sitcoms cannot afford to ignore the internet's sprawling presence in Gen Z’s life – but depicting it comes with its own problems. Overlaying text graphics on screen has become visually clunky, so these shows look for alternatives to incorporate the all-consuming nature of internet life – or not. Adults' workaround is, on the whole, to avoid the phone screen altogether. Meanwhile, Not Suitable For Work barely mentions dating apps, which is an oversight given the show's focus on its characters' turbulent dating lives. 

I Love LA is the only one of these shows that really centres today's digital culture, set as it is among phone-obsessed influencers and other entertainment industry types. The show refreshingly recognises the online performativity that permeates the generation. As one influencer claims, "If you stop for a second", you will "disappear". 

But the sitcom offers little deeper commentary on the nuances of Gen Z's double life – spent between the "real" world and the online world – beyond poking fun at the shallow, image-obsessed influencer mindset. Talent agent Maia's (Sennott) work is too ambiguous, and the content posted by the show's central influencer, Tallulah (Odessa A'zion), is never visualised.

So far, Adults is the sharpest Gen Z sitcom offering, presenting relatable characters without sacrificing effervescent humour – and, with strong reviews for the second season, it will be interesting to see how it fares with audiences. But it certainly remains an uphill battle to capture Gen Z in a way that is both funny and authentic – and find the audience to appreciate that. 

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