That’s a funny way to spell Newsradio.

I think it’s because the Friends cast was young and hot and the Seinfeld cast wasn’t.*

I thought the characters of Friends were, for the most part, pretty realistic - for characters in a comedy. No better nor worse than some of my own neighbors or myself, for that matter. But they got along, supported and tolerated each other. They were 20-somethings. Of course, the main difference between the shows was…

plus it’s not currently on netflix

I was under the impression one of the two creators of Friends was also gay, which didn’t stop them from making plenty of gay jokes.

The article is definitely light on specifics (in that it provides none at all.)

Not that Friends isn’t white as hell (and I love Aisha Tyler), but Lauren Tom was a recurring character in the second season. Gabrielle Union was also on the show before Aisha Tyler in a much smaller role as another love interest for Ross and Joey. Give these actors their credit!

I mostly agree with you, the only issue of the show I have trouble getting past is how awful Ross is. 

Ross did have an Asian girlfriend for most of season 2. Remember Julie!

Aisha Tyler didn’t show up until s9 (of 10) I think.

My Fiancee watches friends almost on an infinite loop (something I will never understand), but truly Phoebe being a genuinely cruel monster has been my takeaway from this re-visitation. Also that Matt LaBlanc (not to be confused with his character Joey) somehow magically learned to act in seemingly a single year. He…

It was a truly awful, self-indulgent piece. You could have easily cut out the frist 500 words and replaced them with “Friends is bad.”

Phoebe tends to be held up as the nicest/most-tolerable of the Friends but upon rewatching I was shocked to discover how stunningly cruel even she could be. I came to the conclusion that Joey, weirdly enough, is the only one who seems to have a consistent moral center.

Friends is still good. Just rewatched all 10 seasons with my kids and it still makes me laugh hard.

The show has glaring issues FOR SURE, but largely sitcoms aren’t any better in current days- take anything Chuck Lorre has touched, it will not hold well against Friends.

Yeah, that article is worse than Friends ever was.

Absolutely. I think it’s unfair to bash Friends because I think sitcoms in general haven’t aged well. How many popular comedies nowadays even have a laugh track? I think the actors really grew into their roles over time and still to this day there are many, many funny scenes I can recall.

“Yeah, it was never a super funny show, but it got by on characters.”

From just a purely technical point of view, Friends is the platonic ideal of the multi-cam, half hour sitcom.

“just like on Seinfeld, all the characters are basically selfish assholes.”

I think you mean “just like TV sitcoms from the beginning of the medium”. 

FRIENDS was very, very good in it’s day. Not SEINFELD good, but clever-than-usual scripts being performed by six actors with killer comedy timing.

That 2019 writers keep doing drivebys on FRIENDS on the weeks they’re not doing deep-dive reappraisals of GOLDEN GIRLS or effusing over the “Why Don’t He Want Me?” episode…