Friends Private Owner Pages
Pro-Friends Personal Web Pages
Sites like Andy William's "Friends" personal
web page contain volumes of
information, including episodes guides, FAQs,
photos, and mailing lists. However, the information
is either surface-level discussions of plots and actors or
sometimes even unapologetic praise of the show.
Williams' page is representative of the rest of the 65 or so
pages listed with Yahoo. Many of them, in fact, link to one
another and archive the same materials.
Students can use sites like Williams' as sources of plot lines
when they write papers or to discover details they may have
missed watching it on television.
They can also reference sites like
Arthur Lin's page for dialogue quotes (the site claims to have
daily Friends quotes, as well as an archive of them).
However, students looking for
critical discussions with which they
can engage and negotiate are often at a loss.
Anti-Friends Personal Web Pages
Even sites which claim to be anti-Friends contain little
ideological critique of the television show. The actual
"Anti-Friends Page" (whose author is anonymous) is
presumably a site of discussion about problems with the
show. The page has much promise, with several intelligent
observations about the show. For example,
the author describes the cast of Friends as "'beautiful
people living a 'beautiful' life." The author also mentions
a few implausibilities of the show, such as the economically
impossible New York apartment rented by two of the
characters.
In actuality, the main function of the page seems to be its
guestbook. The author instructs those who are also anti-Friends
to sign in and leave comments. As a discussion site, this aspect
of the "Anti-Friends Page" works well. Like the newgroup, though,
the discussion is often unreliable in its information.
Another anti-Friends site is "The Official Unofficial
F*R*I*E*N*D*S
Sucks Page" by Hoam Payj. This page is even more curious than
the previous one. Although it is supposed to be a critique
of the show, the majority of the page consists of links to
pro-Friends pages as well as photos some of which are
disfigured. The page also advertises merchandise such as
anti-Friends t-shirts. The most critical aspect of Hoam's
site is his reaction to several newsgroup postings. In most
of these however, the author actually critiques the fans
more than the show, even questioning the literacy of one fan.
- Andy Williams' "Friends" Page
- Arthur Lin's "Arthur's Friends Quotes" Page
- The "Anti-Friends Page"
- Hoam Payj's "Official Unofficial F*R*I*E*N*D*S Sucks Page"
