Friends' jokes about Ross' career were insulting and made the show worse as a consequence. The 1994-2004 sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman follows six friends in New York City who help each other make it through their 20s and early 30s. Over the course of 10 seasons, the group figures out both their personal lives - as they deal with various romantic mishaps - as well as their professional lives. Some oscillate between being out of work and switching careers, while some stick to their profession throughout the series: Rachel changes many jobs across Friends' seasons, but Ross chose to be a paleontologist early on and spent all his on-screen time as an academic in the department.
Out of Friends' six friends, Ross (David Schwimmer) has always been the one most interested in books, history, and trivia. He always knew what he wanted to do, as he loved dinosaurs all his life. When they were in high school, Ross was known as Monica's (Courteney Cox) "geeky older brother," which is why Rachel, played by Jennifer Aniston, paid no attention to him. As an adult, Ross's geekiness is shown when he embarrasses himself in front of his friends by playing his "electrifying" keyboard tune or when he gets overenthusiastic about a work thing that no one else in the group understands - not to mention that he also embarrasses himself by getting married and divorced multiple times. Friends' Ross often presents himself as Dr. Ross Geller, proving he is proud of his achievement in the paleontology academia. However, it often seems like his five friends mock his accomplishments, and even dismiss his intellectual affinities as nerdy or boring.
Ross' friends making fun of his career is problematic on a few levels. When Ross asks his friends to guess what happened at work one day, and Chandler (Matthew Perry) asks if a "dinosaur died a million years ago," he is not only uninterested in Ross' work but in Ross as well. Many times, Ross is reminded that being interested in fossils is uncool and that having a Ph.D. doesn't make him a real doctor. The person who makes these jokes the most is Rachel, Ross' long-time love interest in Friends. When Rachel dismisses Ross' title, she creates an unfair dynamic between the two, which ends up causing problems between them. Another person who mocks Ross repeatedly is Joey (Matt LeBlanc), telling Ross of course he didn't read Lord Of The Rings in high school, as he had sex (unlike Ross). Joey places himself on the opposite end of the intellectual spectrum from Ross, often being blissfully ignorant and proud of it. These moments with Joey mocking Ross' fossil interests and the audience laughing in the background make it seem like Friends is promoting obtuseness and naïveté over knowledge.
One Reddit user noticed that Ross' friends were more mean than funny throughout their process of mocking him: "It's one thing to keep his ego in check, but [mocking] his passion all the time is straight-up insulting." This casual cruelty doesn't end with Ross: no one in Friends knows what Chandler's job is either. Chandler worked in "statistical analysis and data reconfiguration" until season 9, when he switched to junior copywriter, after years of hating his old job. The fact that no one knows what he does has the same effect as mocking Ross' career. When Rachel announces confidently that Chandler is a "transponster," she is not only inventing a word, but she lets Chandler know she doesn't care what he does.
Many jokes in Friends are a bit cruel, as the six people who are meant to support each other sometimes end up doing the opposite. Usually, their issues last a few episodes and they patch it up in the end. However, when it comes to ridiculing Ross for his interest in dinosaurs, the story only ends with the Friends finale, where Ross and Rachel finally reunite as a couple. When Rachel confesses her love for Ross, she arguably redeems herself for mocking his career - however, this doesn't absolve everyone else, including the show itself.