Life

Could The GIRLS Characters Afford Their LIfestyle?

by Catie Keck

A good many of us have bemoaned the fictitious media representations of living in New York City, most notably regarding the financial decision-making processes of protagonists in shows like GIRLS. New automated savings app Digit picked up on the discrepancies in the show’s income/reality ratio and created an infographic of the Financial Lives of GIRLS, a flowchart of improbable circumstances. Ha! you scoffed at the thought of sustaining yourself in Brooklyn as a part-time barista a la Hannah Horvath, That’s rich. Rich, after all, is what many scrappy young city dwellers aren't. But how about Marnie Michael’s gallery assistant position? Or how much would anyone bold enough to hire Jessa Johansson as their nanny pay?

Digit tapped that millennial eyeroll factor and figured out what the living expenses and rent of the characters of GIRLS would be respectively, and for each season to boot. Surprisingly — or perhaps not surprisingly, depending on your favoritism — Jessa is the only cast member whose annual earnings exceed her living expenses (with the exception of Season 2, while she was bitching about Kim Gordon’s scrunchies in rehab). The rest of the crew? They fare well enough, but the probability that they are self-sustaining members of society is questionable at best. Take a look at the numbers below:

Image: Indiewire/Twitter; Digit