‘She’s So Real for That’: What Does Gen Z See in Carrie Bradshaw?

Photo: Courtesy of HBO

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Maybe it’s the impending arrival of And Just Like That Season 3, or maybe it’s the nostalgic era that we’re living in, but my TikTok For You Page has never been more Carrie Bradshaw. The fan-cams are inescapable. Her voice is constantly ricocheting out of my phone speakers and through my mind. This neurotic 30-something Vogue columnist (ahem), who can’t help but go for avoidantly attached men and always seems to bring the conversation back to herself, has become an It girl of sorts for Gen Z. “She’s so real for that,” wrote one commenter beneath a clip of Carrie saying, in typically dramatic fashion, “We’re so over… we need a new word for over.”

It hasn’t always been cool to rally behind Carrie. When Sex and the City first aired in 1998, the show was widely praised for its pithy ’90s approach to dating and gender politics, as well as its refreshingly funny script. But as the series went on, the show’s bouncy-haired protagonist started to rub viewers the wrong way. “For years it remained a lovable and re-runnable romp,” wrote Hannah Verdier for The Guardian. “That was until Carrie began to really grate. Although later seasons had plenty to love… viewers [adopt Carrie’s inner voice] couldn’t help but wonder if Bradshaw might be too annoying for TV.”

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Though I was too young to have watched Sex and the City’s initial run, I do recall Carrie being my mum and her Gen X mates’ least favorite—and they weren’t the only ones. She was almost too relatable, so much so it made you wince, and she wasn’t as carefree and sexually open as Samantha, as direct as Miranda, or as endearing as Charlotte. Though she was a sex columnist, she was surprisingly prudish, often judgemental, and she barely noticed what was going on outside of herself and her “problems.” The disdain for Carrie was, for a while, quite widespread. There’s even an entire blog, titled Carrie Bradshaw is the Worst, dedicated to unpacking exactly why, you guessed it, Carrie Bradshaw is the worst.

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But this newer generation of viewers doesn’t seem to care about Carrie’s myriad flaws (and you can’t deny she has a few). In fact, for Gen Z, it’s exactly those flaws and neuroses that add to her realness. “People who hate on Carrie definitely don’t get her,” wrote one commenter beneath yet another fan-cam, with another adding: “A lot of people won’t understand this freedom.” “No one gets her like I do,” wrote another beneath a compilation of Carrie lighting up ciggies. “I’m Samantha in another life. I’m Carrie in this one.” Her redemption arc in the public consciousness isn’t dissimilar to that of Hannah Horvath or even Marnie Michaels in Lena Dunham’s Girls—although Carrie is, by all accounts, much cooler.

A lot of Gen Xers and millennials were raised to believe that, as women, they should strive to be “the chill girl.” The girl who isn’t “too much,” who doesn’t care what her guy does, and who certainly isn’t going to wear her romantic anxieties on her sleeve. But I wonder if—or I hope, at least—this same chill-girl trope just doesn’t hold the same appeal for the generations below. Gen Z worships at the altar of artists like Olivia Rodrigo, Lana Del Rey, and Gracie Abrams—all anti-chill girls, in their music at least—so it’s no great stretch to imagine why they’ve fallen for Carrie also. It helps that, with a designer wardrobe straight out of the ’90s and ’00s, the columnist is the ultimate style icon, too. Fashion-forward and totally unhinged? It’s no wonder 21-year-olds think she’s a baddie.

Sarah Jessica Parker herself has always been open about being a Carrie apologist, just like her newer fans. “Her friendships are complicated, and she often failed like we all do,” she told HBO on the show’s 20th anniversary. “You fail at love, you fail your friends and yourself. We were never afraid of those flaws in Carrie and they were illustrated often and accurately. Sometimes, people judged her harshly for that, but I was always happy to tell those stories because that’s what made her human and what made people connect.”