Millennials and Gen-Z are fueling the rising popularity of Friendsgiving celebrations

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, next week is shaping up to be one of the most hectic travel periods of the year. But not everyone travels for Thanksgiving.

If you’ve ever worked a job where you don’t get the holiday off, or lived far away from your family, you’re probably familiar with the concept of “Friendsgiving.” It’s an alternative to the traditional big biological family gathering, especially common amongst millennial and Gen Z folks — and it’s more popular than ever.

Here to tell us more about it is The Show’s resident pop culture expert, Amanda Kehrberg.

Full conversation

SAM DINGMAN: Amanda, good morning.

AMANDA KEHRBERG: Good morning.

DINGMAN: So, let's clear up a misconception first.

KEHRBERG: Yes.

DINGMAN: A lot of people associate Friendsgiving with the TV show "Friends."

KEHRBERG: They do.

DINGMAN: Not accurate, right?

KEHRBERG: No, it doesn't technically come from the "Friends" era. In fact, Merriam Webster wasn't even tracking the term until around 2007, when it starts popping up on Usenet, like classic message boards, Twitter. But we really associate, I think, it with "Friends" because "Friends" had such beautiful, and hilarious and classic "Friends" Thanksgiving episodes.

DINGMAN: Yes. And "Friends," of course, a huge millennial touchpoint culturally.

KEHRBERG: Yeah.

DINGMAN: Let's talk about why Friendsgiving is so associated with millennial and Gen Z folks.

KEHRBERG: I think those are the two generations that started to grow up considered — millennials were called digital natives, and then Gen Z really were. But we're talking about two generations who grew up so saturated in media, and then particularly digital media. And so our sense of our relationships to people began to move away from the family as a core unit to our friends, our colleagues, all of these people that, algorithmically, we're more and more closely tied to based on shared values, shared interests, shared activities— things that are not that kind of traditional, "well, these are my classic family relationships."

DINGMAN: Interesting. Well, so I mean, let's talk about what we mean when we say Friendsgiving, because, you know, it often gets referred to as, like, an alternative to Thanksgiving, but in terms of what's actually happening, it's not so different, right?

KEHRBERG: It's really not. And I think for a lot of people, it's an add-on, too. It's not even necessarily a replacement. It's still about getting together with people you care about. It's about being grateful, sharing a meal, sharing memories and having that kind of warm, fuzzy feeling with a community, even if it's a community that you've built and not one that you just, sort of, entered the world with.

DINGMAN: But this is really interesting, what you're saying about the digital layer to all this.

KEHRBERG: Yeah.

DINGMAN: And the sense of connection that feels different generationally amongst younger folks, which, you know, we think of Thanksgiving sometimes as, like, this very warm thing, but for a lot of people, they associate Thanksgiving with, like, awkward conversations, nervousness about family. Does that play into millennial and Gen Z folks pull towards these sorts of gatherings?

KEHRBERG: I think absolutely, yes. We're in an era now of extreme media fragmentation. So, like, so much of our lives are lived and experienced through these screens that are showing us very different perspectives on the world. So we don't necessarily have as much in common with our family when we sit down and we haven't seen them in a while.

And that's how it turns into this thing that makes people so uncomfortable, because it feels like sitting around a table with people who really might not share your values, might not care about the issues you care about.

Particularly last year, that was all we were talking about, right? How tense the idea of sitting at the Thanksgiving table was, given the kind of uncertainty and stress that's surrounding us in the world right now. So, being able to sit down with people that you're just like, "OK, yeah, we're all on the same page. Hey, we all happen to watch that show. We know the same memes." It can just be, maybe, a way to experience that joy of the holiday that I feel like, in some ways, we've moved away from. Yeah.

DINGMAN: One of the things I think a lot of people associate with a more traditional, biological family Thanksgiving also is tradition, which can sometimes feel very welcome, and can sometimes feel a little heavy on the shoulders.

KEHRBERG: Yes, exactly.

DINGMAN: But at a Friendsgiving celebration, the rules are a little bit looser in general, right?

KEHRBERG: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You can do it, like, with a theme. You can do it with a potluck. It can be just totally something that everybody in the friend group wants to do. I think, like, one of the things that's especially great about doing a potluck is, like, if you think about your kind of classic, traditional Thanksgiving menu that you grew up with, maybe there's one dish on that that's really, really good.

And if everybody brings that one dish instead of, you know, the tyrannical need to do the full list every year, then you are getting a really good Thanksgiving. I mean, you can also mix up styles of food, you know, maybe put a little more spice on it than some of your Midwestern relatives would.

DINGMAN: Well, I just have to say, speaking as the person at my family's Thanksgiving who is often tasked with making the least complicated thing.

KEHRBERG: No, that's me, too.

DINGMAN: I can appreciate the idea of going to a meal where it's like, we don't have to apologize for any of these dishes.

KEHRBERG: Oh, yes. Yeah. Like, you did not destroy Grandma's creamed corn. You made box stuffing, and it was amazing.

DINGMAN: Let me zoom out a little bit here, Amanda. I mean, it's tempting to make an association here with the discourse around — you know, we hear that millennials have ruined staying in hotels. We've heard that millennials have ruined all these things about —

KEHRBERG: Mayonnaise, chilis.

DINGMAN: Yeah.

KEHRBERG: Yeah.

DINGMAN: Do you see an element of that here in the discourse around Friendsgiving?

KEHRBERG: You know, I think there's certainly a way to look at it like that. Yeah, that there is — because there's a breaking with tradition. There is a generation that's saying, like, "I not only might not be back this year for Thanksgiving, I might not be back next year either." And that takes a lot of strength, I think, too. And that can be a very hard shift. But I think that it's OK.

I think that it's OK to say, "Hey, maybe some things are changing, but we're still leading with love here. We're getting together with people we care about. We're celebrating. We're sharing this experience." And maybe it doesn't look like it has looked for decades, but it's still beautiful.