Rachel Green dominated pop culture after Friends’ first season with her signature haircut, which the show even referenced in the second season. Friends became a cultural phenomenon following its 1994 debut, giving a new generation a look at what life could be like for a group of 20-something friends in New York City. Aside from 62 Emmy nominations, the show has bragging rights for holding a top-ten television ranking spot for all ten seasons, the number one spot for its eighth season, and having the fifth most-watched series finale of all time.
Portrayed by Jennifer Aniston, Rachel Green is the catalyst for Friends’ plot in the pilot as she runs away from her wedding into Central Perk to find her old friend Monica, who is hanging out with her pals Ross, Phoebe, Chandler, and Joey. Throughout the show’s ten seasons, Rachel arguably goes through the most significant change, with Chandler in a close second. She begins as the rich girl who doesn’t even know how to do her own laundry to a self-sufficient fashion executive with a baby and five great friends. Aside from her job title, Rachel was known for influencing fashion trends with her outfits, though most notably with her signature “The Rachel” haircut.
The real-life craze over Rachel’s haircut became so well-known that Friends even included a reference to it during a season 2 episode. In “The One with the Lesbian Wedding,” Rachel’s mom comes to visit her for the first time since she started her life over, which her mom implies she wants to do herself. She informs Rachel she and her father are getting a divorce and she wants to try new things like smoke marijuana, talk about sex, and start life anew. The sudden change in Rachel's family dynamic scares her, and when Monica tells her that Rachel’s mom is likely doing this because she wants to be more like her, Rachel responds, “Couldn’t she have just copied my haircut?”
Once “The Rachel” went wild after its debut in the season 1 episode, “The One with the Evil Orthodontist,” Friends officially established itself as a cultural phenomenon. It’s not surprising Jennifer Aniston had the most successful career following the series considering her image was used to inspire the tens of thousands who followed the trend. The layered, highlighted shag cut was asked for in salons around the world, but the caveat is that Jennifer Aniston actually hated the haircut. According to Mental Floss, Aniston believes the haircut is ugly and “cringe,” also expressing frustration in not being able to do the cut without the help of her stylist.
Thankfully for Aniston, the haircut didn’t stick around longer for herself than needed considering she transitioned to long hair by the end of the third season. From then on, fans would simply go to the salon with their TV guides and show the stylists whatever new haircut Rachel was sporting. The trivial aspect of inspiring a haircut fad truly revealed the massive sway that Friends had over mainstream culture back in 1994; a hold the series still has on some viewers over 25 years later.