On June 6, 1998, Sex and the City premiered on HBO.
Twenty years later, I learned that someone I work with self-identifies as Berger, the man who infamously dumped Carrie Bradshaw via post-coital Post-it note. I also learned that you shouldn’t ask your entire office which Sex and the City character they are unless you want to be completely mystified by the people you work with every day and start to question if you can ever really know anyone at all.
I couldn’t help but wonder, in this year of our future governor Cynthia Nixon 2018, why people weren’t more ashamed to out themselves as a Carrie. And to my co-workers who did not respond to me, or simply responded with the name of the character a BuzzFeed quiz assigned them, in the immortal words of Kim Cattrall: “We’ve never been friends. We’ve been colleagues.”
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And for what it’s worth, I am Jenny Brier, the 13-year-old played by Kat Dennings who hires Samantha to plan her Bat Mitzvah.
Marlow Stern, Senior Entertainment Editor:
A part of me wants to say Dr. Robert Leeds, because we both love the New York Knicks—much to our own detriment. And I’ve always felt Miranda was the most complex, real-to-New York character on the show, so I can see why he’d fall for her. But his reaction to being dumped for Steve was bizarre. So I’m just gonna go with Lexi Featherston, played by the fabulous Kristen Johnson, who loudly complains, “New York is over. O-V-E-R. Over,” before falling out a window during a party. I think all New Yorkers can relate.
Andrew Kirell, Senior Editor:
Andrew Kirell: I assume we’re to pick from among only the four leads, right?
Amy Zimmerman: Not at all! I’d be disappointed if there wasn’t at least one Berger.
AK: Lol damn it that would’ve been my exact answer, because 1) I just love Ron Livingston and his general demeanor, but 2) yeah, OK, he’s a writer and incredibly sarcastic but good-natured. I relate. Also, addendum to my answer: I like him because I’d dump Carrie too.
AZ: Noted. But would you dump her… with a Post-it?
AK: Hahaha, probably not. More likely some kinda long-winded, apologetic, self-deprecating soliloquy that ends up with me rethinking the decision.
Tamara Best, Assistant Managing Editor:
This is so fun. I know which one I am but I’ll take the quiz first anyway.
Katie Baker, Managing Editor:
I'm either Charlotte or the little Jack Russell she brings home for an episode in Season 2—the one that destroys all the feather pillows and eats her designer bag.
Kelly Weill, Reporter:
I have never watched the show and am unfamiliar with its characters, but I assume someone had a fancy little dog who rode around in a handbag. I would like to be the fancy dog.
Julia Arciga, Cheat Sheet Intern:
I love SATC, my mom watched it when she was in her 20s—and thus, it's a nice tradition or ~connection~ we have. I’m a proud Miranda (per the BF quiz listed and many other BF quizzes). I’ve always loved her smarts, ambition, and her ability to keep it real with her friends—namely Carrie (making them the ideal duo). I’d like to think that both Miranda and I have the “tough love” or “keep it real” aspect in common. I love-hate the dynamic between Carrie and Mr. Big—but Miranda is just an underappreciated cornerstone of the show.
My mother, on the other hand, is a total Carrie.
Kamaron McNair, Editorial Assistant:
I consider myself a Carrie/Samantha hybrid. I have Carrie’s sympathetic and emotional traits, but Samantha’s independent and outspoken attitude.
Justin Miller, Senior Editor:
Miranda, according to the Quiz.
Justin Miller a day later when I reminded the office to send me answers:
I did this. I am a Miranda.
Kate Briquelet, Senior Reporter:
A scrappy and financially averse writer who rents—not owns—her apartment? Check. Has a wardrobe of tutus, (faux) fur coats, and eclectic prints? Check. Enjoys the company of emotionally unavailable men? Yup! Aside from a penchant for Manolo Blahniks, I always identified with Carrie, the only one in the bunch who wasn’t born with a silver spoon. It was Sex and the City (and, kill me, Annie Hall) that inspired this Midwest gal to literally take a Greyhound bus to New York City. But when I arrived, Cosmopolitans quickly got old. And the big-hearted but ultra-cynical Miranda Hobbes took over. We are all Miranda.
Tom Sykes, Reporter:
Genuinely not a scoobie!
[Author’s note: This is a British-ism for “I have no idea.”]
OK, maybe I’m a Steve.
Awww!!!!
Malia Griggs, Director of Social Media:
Miranda. I knew I was, took the quiz, and confirmed it. I live in New York, I work constantly, and I disdain most men. I’m almost too busy to answer this question, but I was too amused to pass it up.
Natalia Winkelman, Entertainment Intern:
Miranda’s son, Brady Hobbes. Often seated silently at fancy brunch tables beside his mom and the rest of the crew, Brady can also be found stuffing his face with spaghetti or presenting a homemade mousetrap in his school science fair.
Mandy Velez, Social Media Editor:
This is fun. I took the quiz and it says I am Miranda, but I took a second to confirm (I’m a journalist, after all) and it said I’m a Carrie, so I think I’m a mixture of both. I’m a feminist and support female empowerment, I like to help my friends solve their problems, and I love my career. Those are all things that Miranda, Carrie, and I have in common. I’m not afraid to tell people like it is like Miranda (I’m also known to yell at men who harass my friends while out) but I also have this charming side like Carrie (we’re both Libras, after all). I think it’s a solid mixture!
Tim Teeman, Senior Editor and Writer:
I am Miranda. I have always been Miranda. I will be Miranda when all else around me is turned to dust. Given all the sappy, ridiculous things the scriptwriters give the women to say—
I have watched and continue to watch the show multiple times—it is only Miranda who is both funny and speaks sense. She’s the best friend who is the best bucket of cold water. She works, and cares about work. She likes sex, and has sex. But when she has sex with the hottest guys WHO AREN’T STEVE something terrible happens. Remember the really hot guy, who was so hot that other women would check him out, leading to Miranda feeling so threatened she got so rat-arse drunk she turned him off. I love her pretending to be an air stewardess. I love the episodes where she is pregnant or with Brady, and Samantha is a cow, and the show reflects on how a baby changes everything around you. I love her relationship with Magda, the cleaner who is really a surrogate mother. I love that she tells the truth to the other women, especially when she tells Carrie to get a grip about going to Paris. On which subject: I can’t tell you how disappointed I was when she told Mr. Big to “go get our girl” in Paris, when Carrie was in Paris with abusive Petrovsky.
The women should have gone to get their girl. The show totally betrayed its feminist principles in those last episodes.
And Steve. Oh, Steve. I love Miranda because of Steve, and I probably like Miranda and Steve because of Miranda and Steve. David Eigenberg, who plays Steve, is the hottest man in Sex and the City, with a gorgeous body we sometimes see, all smooth and rugged and muscular. He looks good with nothing on, and he looks hot in anything, especially his basketball clothes. He’s beautiful. When Miranda and him are finally on honeymoon, and Miranda is, like, “I’m in the middle of nowhere,” this viewer was like: “Fine, Miranda, you come back to the city, I’ll take your place, love. Talk about ungrateful. How and why would you ever turn down sex with Steve?”
But this is Miranda. In control and flawed, funny, and understandably on the verge of confronting a sexually suggestive walking hot dog. She handled that brilliantly, too.
Melissa Leon, Entertainment Editor:
Like any self-absorbed little shit in high school, I identified mostly with Carrie, though I also liked Charlotte because she was rich (aspirational) and kind of prudish (so was I). It dawned on me while watching the show as an adult, however, that Samantha Jones is an absolute hero. She’s often reduced to jokes about her sex drive; we get it, it’s funny when a woman is open about wanting sex. But Samantha was so much more, too! She was self-possessed, brave, confident, independent, open-minded, unapologetic, and a really loyal friend—all qualities I aspire to.
I’m probably still just a Carrie, though: a little immature, bad with money, prone to fixations on the wrong men. (I am firmly anti-Big.) She also can’t cook or figure out computers, which just makes me feel seen, you know?
Noah Shachtman, Editor-in-Chief:
I’ve never seen Sex and the City. But I’m quite positive I’m a Miranda. She’s the one who wants to fix the subways, right? Definitely Miranda.
Asawin Suebsaeng, White House Reporter:
I am a Samantha. Don’t kink-shame.
Tanya Basu, Senior Editor, Science:
Sure, Carrie was the writer in New York whose professional life I technically aspired to. Samantha was the gutsy gal who spoke her mind, something I did more comfortably through my writing and found admirable as a shy high schooler. And Charlotte—well, her prim frocks and needling were foreign to me, so I couldn’t quite figure out how she worked into my alchemy.
But Miranda was the one who I truly embodied and wanted to grow up to be (minus that whole lawyer business). Here was a woman whose bright shock of short red hair made her stand out even if she didn’t want to. The frizzy-haired Indian girl who hated being the center of attention found Miranda’s refreshing bluntness inspirational. She was practical, though: She didn’t care what her uppity friends said about her Brooklyn address and rolled her eyes any time they centered their brunch conversations around men when really, really there were far more important things to talk about and food to scarf down.
Miranda wore sneakers, befriended her housekeeper but also elevated her mind-set, was smart and snappy and could care less about how she was perceived by society. In the world pre-#MeToo, she was a heroine of the everyday, hardworking gal who just wanted to fight the good fight, bluntly yet kindly, thoughtfully with pizazz.
Kevin Fallon, Senior Entertainment Reporter:
I’m a Magda because I’m fiercely devoted to Cynthia Nixon and without me this whole operation would fall to shit.
