"Are you a Yuffie?" shouts the cover of this month's Elle magazine, and because I'm always looking for a new ailment to adopt, I just had to find out whether I was one or not.
A Yuffie, it turns out, is not a new form of repetitive strain injury but one of those ridiculous acronyms first started in the 1980s with Yuppies and constantly bastardised ever since (Yippies, Dinkys, Nimbys, Muppets, Tulips, etc). The latest in the line, a Yuffie, describes someone who is Young, Urban, Fashionable and a Flat-sharer - whoever dreamed this one up obviously ran out of steam before they got to I and EI was both pleased and horrified to realise that yes, I probably am a Yuffie (or to put it into magazine-speak, "Yes! I am a Yuffie!"). Rather than living out my own individual destiny, it seems I'm unwittingly following all the rules of a social group which can be summed up by a silly acronym. I suppose I could be rebellious and wear nothing but nappy pants, to make sure I wasn't Fashionable, but I can hardly avoid being Young, Urban and a Flat-sharer. So I might as well get used to my new acronym status, because like it or not, I, along with most of my friends, am currently the object of media obsession.
Just think about the zillions of books, television series and films about flat-sharing singletons in their 20s and early 30s. Think about the six stars of Friends who recently secured $750,000 each per episode to make another series - how high must the ratings be to provide that kind of moolah? Think about BBC2, using a prime evening slot to re-run all 32 episodes of the 1990s series about another six-pack of flat-sharers, This Life. Think about Men Behaving Badly and Gimme, Gimme, Gimme. Think about Channel 4 fighting back with a new real-life game show called, surprise, surprise, Flatmates.
Then there's the books - Patrick French, one of the judges for this year's Somerset Maugham Award (for authors under the age of 35), recently wrote that the novels he was required to read "appeared to be a terrible, melded pastiche of This Life, Bridget Jones and crass lads' magazines, a facile combination of eating takeaways, watching videos, visiting the pub, getting interminably stoned and arbitrary, movie-derived violence". I know what he means because although I can't remember the names of a single one, I've read countless books which played out this exact formula.
There's usually a best friend called Maz, or something equally ridiculous; a gay flatmate who's obsessed with Betty Grable and tries to remedy every problem with a cocktail hour; a gorgeous guy who lives downstairs with his girlfriend (who turns out to only be his sister after all. Oh! My! God!); a million phone calls that start "You won't believe what just happened to me . . .", and a scene involving a last-minute dash across town to get the heroine to a wedding/party/supermarket before Mr Right marries/snogs/buys a Magnum for Ms Wrong. In between, there's lots of references to Sharing Everything, Stealing Sneaky Pints and Intense Times - SESSPITS, as it were. They're always written in a matey, jokey, knowing tone of voice: "I'm Caroline, by the way - blonde-ish, thin-ish, 20-ish and finished. With men that is."
Magazines further feed the current fascination with flat-sharing. Vogue may discuss the benefits of sharing your flatmate's wardrobe, Marie Claire may agonise over flatmates who are lesbian dyslexics from the Middle East and Wallpaper* may feature obscure pictures of flatmates in designer flip-flops tussling on the sofa with a carton of milk (flip-flops, sofa, milk and flatmates all for sale at the Wallpaper* website).
Then there's the endless string of those ads which are played just before an episode of series such as Friends or Sex in the City, where girls rugby-tackle each other in order to get to the sofa first, with a bar of Flake and a face-pack. And just when you thought everyone had finally stopped talking about Bridget Jones as a social phenomenon, they've started to make a much-hyped film of the book starring Renee Zellweger and Colin Firth.
There are a number of reasons it's unsurprising that the flatmates scenario is quite so popular at the moment. Certainly when they first started, there was a definite need for flat-sharing dramas. Clever programmers, writers and publishers realised that there was a whole tranche of society that was neither attached nor married nor a lonely spinster or bachelor of yore, but was instead having a ball living with their mates. When you've no mortgage, kids or even a regular partner and you're in your first proper job, you definitely do have different priorities, perspectives and weekly adventures. I thought This Life tapped into this wonderfully and it's worth remembering just how original Bridget Jones once was.
However, publishers, producers, magazine editors - and of course the advertisers who help them to survive - have always been guilty of searching for the next version of the last big thing. Once Bridget Jones et al created a formula that was watched and read by millions, the money-makers were more interested in doing it all over again than they were in moving on to new and riskier pastures. I know because I've had inquiries from British publishers wondering would I be interested in writing a "Bridget Jones with a Celtic twist". Oh! My! God!
Practically speaking, the flat-share story line is very little different from the winning formulas from the past - such as "take a group of young police detectives" or "take one family". It doesn't matter all that much why these glamorous young people hang out together, just as long as it provides plenty of opportunity for babes to look good, guys to look tense, and for both sexes to do lots of costume changes. Admittedly, there's a bit of an edge to flat-sharing in that, like Swedish au pairs and Bond girls, young people who share flats are all just dying to jump into bed with each other once they've had a few glasses of red wine and a bit of wacky baccy.
You see, the more these glowing paeans to Yuffie-living keep flooding our screens, the less and less I identify with any of them. Sure, like many other twentysomethings, I watch some of them, but only out of escapism: not from feeling that I am being represented. Perhaps because the market is just so saturated now, media flat-share situations have become either astonishingly glamorous - take a look at the babes in Elle who each have a bathroom and a balcony in the penthouse they share - or ridiculously cliche-ridden.
I don't even really know whether I am a true Yuffie because I don't have, or never have had, a fling with my flatmate, a cocktail bar in the living room, a job working for a top international fashion website or an addiction to M & S chicken korma. Somewhere along the line, the creators of dramas, novels and films have become detached from the reality of people living in flats, and adopted some eclectic set of flat-sharers which could have walked straight out of Central Casting. It was never all that brilliant a central premise for a drama, but it does have some strengths which are not in the mundane details such as stealing milk or boyfriends.
Flat-sharers are building very different social groups, relating to each other in an entirely new way, and are simultaneously avoiding and accepting very different responsibilities to the generation before. But then again, to portray serious issues in a popular medium might mean it wasn't MOR, light-hearted, sexy, candy floss. Oh! My! God!