The Central Perk gang are finally all here: Matthew Perry has joined Instagram.
Friends’ final episode aired in 2004, yet for the past 16 years, you’d think it’d never left. Thanks to Comedy Central and Netflix, people binge the sitcom every day in an endless stream of comfort viewing.
As a result, fans are still very much invested in the lives of the core group: Jennifer Aniston (Rachel Green); Courteney Cox (Monica Geller); Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe Buffay); Matt LeBlanc (Joey Tribbiani); David Schwimmer (Ross Geller); and Matthew Perry (Chandler Bing) – the latter of whom is the final member to join Instagram.
The actor had teased his Twitter followers just last night, February 5, with a cryptic tweet reading: ‘Big news coming…’
People went nuts. ‘Please say it’s a Friends Reunion!?!?” one wrote, while another added: ‘Don’t play with my feelings like this.’
Unfortunately, your feelings have been taken for a ride. Unless another announcement comes soon, it seems Perry was hinting to his own Instagram debut.
While he’s yet to make an actual post, his co-star Kudrow uploaded a throwback snap to commemorate the occassion, writing: ‘Finally!!! Yay!! Can’t believe my eyes MY EYES
Welcome to Instagram @mattyperry4 #friendsforlife’.
Last year, Aniston broke the internet when she joined Instagram, uploading a pic of all the Friends together and managing to nab a Guinness World Record after reaching one million followers in just five hours and 16 minutes (beating Prince Harry and Meghan Markle).
It was just another accolade to add to Aniston’s list: along with Cox and Kudrow, the Friends share the record for the highest-paid TV female actor per episode. By the end of the show’s run in 2004, Aniston was earning $1.25 million per episode.
News regarding a Friends reunion is basically no further on. Aniston fuelled fans’ hopes on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, saying: ‘We’d love for there to be something, but we don’t know what that something is, so we’re just trying – we’re really working on something.’
However, Schwimmer isn’t as keen to revive the characters, telling The Guardian:
I just don’t think it’s possible, given everyone’s different career trajectories. I think everyone feels the same: why mess with what felt like the right way to end the series? I don’t want to do anything for the money. It would have to make sense creatively and nothing I’ve heard so far presented to us makes sense.
Oh well. In the meantime, keep an eye on Perry’s Instagram and proceed to binge Friends for the 1,045th time.
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.