*Carrie voice over* “I can’t help but wonder... sixteen years on, would the modern world have altered the lives of our four leading ladies?”
During its run from 1998 – 2004, Sex and the City became a cult classic, telling the tales of modern women everywhere. Fans have watched and re-watched the fashions, break-ups and kiss-and-make-ups of four intelligent, fashionable and sassy ladies.
However, they didn’t have to deal with social media – Carrie could barely use email (Speaking about her computer: “Can it see me?”), dating apps and GPS.
Work
Carrie Bradshaw was a columnist for the fictional ‘New York Star’, freelance writer for ‘Vogue’ and a published author, but if Carrie was starting her career today, how would her professional life have panned out? Today, she would have access to several online platforms to tell the story of her life.
Would she have stayed faithful to the dying newspaper industry or become a blogger? Carrie could create a Sex and the City blog and promote it through social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook - her audience would expand and her career could thrive worldwide.
Known by many for her eclectic, but beautiful, fashion sense, Carrie could incorporate her love for designer dresses, bags and shoes with her social media presence. Platforms like Instagram and Pinterest could be huge for her, enabling Carrie to showcase her style to the masses (she would love that!).
Integrating her Pinterest / Instagram profiles with her blog posts would have inevitably sent her online profile and personal brand through the roof. How did she afford it all on a columnist’s wage?!
“I can’t help but wonder... with Carrie’s one-of-a-kind personality, lifestyle and way with words, her career could have easily skyrocketed with an injection of social media.”
Friends
Social media has rewritten the friendship rule book. We don’t call our girls on the landline, we tweet them. When it comes to the SATC ladies, social media may not have helped their close bond, let’s face it, a catch up over cosmos with the girls just wouldn’t be the same with their mobiles in the way.
Picture it: Carrie’s attention being diverted by refreshing Big’s Facebook page for updates, Charlotte distracted by ‘selfies’ on Snapchat and Miranda preoccupied with reviewing her LinkedIn connections. And, let’s face it, there’s only one place Samantha would be distracted by – potential new conquests she found through Tinder.
“I can’t help but wonder... could the close SATC bond have been destroyed if they’d been sucked into the Internet-obsessed world we are today? If they had Skype and text messaging, would they have met up in that infamous bakery or went for Cosmos, at all?”
Love
Relationships now are enormously different to 1998. Most couples are formed through mutual Facebook friends or after spotting each other’s photos on Instagram – how would the girls survive in such a dating scene?
It’s hard to believe that the girls met guys in bars and were relatively safe, when meeting someone online is a constantly dangerous prospect for the modern woman – but that’s how it’s done now.
Just think of them finding love online! Carrie would be looking for love with like-minded writers (would she have met Aleksander Petrovsky and Aidan Shaw?) and Miranda would be wary and pessimistic - firmly against online dating (OK, some things don’t change). Charlotte would be constantly updating her Match.com profile with her housewife skills and scrutinising every guy, whereas Samantha... dare we even say what she’d be doing?!
“I can’t help but wonder... would Carrie’s Facebook relationship status be permanently on ‘it’s complicated’ and how would Samantha cope with declining friend requests from men she met at the weekend?”
For young people today it’s hard to imagine just how much our lives have been affected by the “Digital Age”, but it’s great that programmes like Sex and the City highlight how 1998 wasn’t that long ago, yet our lives have been altered forever by modern technology.
Thrive is an inbound marketing agency designed to keep in touch with changes in social media marketing and online marketing techniques (we’re also partial to a Cosmo or two...)
