Friends is arguably one of the most famous television shows in recent decades — of all time even.
And while I didn’t watch it often, I saw enough to know the characters and basic premise.
Most people, especially those who are involved in mainstream media (not news — media), will have, at the very least, a basic understanding of the whos and whats of the show.
Malcolm Gladwell is a wildly successful and hugely praised journalist, author and podcaster. Aside from his current 28-year run as a staff writer for The New Yorker, he’s written many prolific books including The Tipping Point, Outliers, and The Bomber Mafia.
I recently finished reading his 2019 book Talking to Strangers where, in a chapter called “The Friends Fallacy,” he uses the famous show as an example of why we’ve been misled on how we perceive the facial expressions of others.
The context doesn’t matter. What does is that Gladwell made an error in his description of a significant scene.
First of all, he knew the names of the characters. Ross, Chandler, Rachel, Monica — as Ross’s sister and Chandler’s girlfriend. The scene in question described the moment when Ross caught his friend Chandler kissing his sister Monica, revealing their secret relationship.
However, at one point he wrote: “Ross sees Chandler and Rachel embracing, then rushes over in anger.”
Monica, as Gladwell noted multiple times prior, is the person Chandler was embracing. Rachel is hardly related to the scene in question.
The mistake itself is a minor issue. The fact that it was missed, however, is glaring.
Malcolm Gladwell is not an amateur. And there’s little doubt that this passed multiple readings from editors before it was eventually brought to print.
And I listened to the audiobook. This means that even during the re-edit for the new format, it was missed yet again.
The detail is insignificant. It doesn’t change the point Gladwell was making. But the fact that it leapt out at me — an average Friends watcher at best — and not the author or his team of editors and directors, I find quite surprising.