YMMV / Living Single

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Pretty much everyone, but Khadijah is the most glaring example: strong-willed, well-rounded and confident or overbearing, aloof and self-involved?
• Fandom Rivalry: Unfortunately, the show is constantly mentioned in the same breath as Friends which, on the surface, seems like an easy comparison, but the only real similarity is just single working adults with sitcom shenanigans. Both shows widely depart in what material is covered and in the personalities of the protagonists. However, some of the rivalry got turned up to eleven when David Schwimmer proposed an all-black spinoff of Friends in a 2020 interview, Living Single fans quite angrily told him that there was one already (Schwimmer claimed he'd never heard of this show, but apologized for his ignorance nonetheless).
• Friendly Fandoms: With Martin (1992), which aired back-to-back on Thursday nights in the 90s. While the shows were occasionally nominated for the same awards, like the Soul Train Awards, fans of both shows feel they complement each other (and had their respective actors guest-star on the other show) and reminisce fondly on their popularity when speaking about them.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In the episode, "Her Cups Runneth Over" (where Regine receives a breast reduction), she asks Khadijah why it wasn't her getting one, to which she replies, "This shelf was built to carry this" or something to that effect. Flash forward a decade later, this ended up no longer being true due to Queen Latifah getting one herself, in real life.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Max once ran for office using the slogan "Ride the Maverick!". It was also her college nickname.
  • The episode "Great Expectations" has Max bemoaning not wanting to spend their night at the club being pursued by a man with a gold tooth, even bringing up a Noodle Incident involving a date with Flavor Flav. To this, Khadijah jokes that at least she got a clock out of it.
  • One episode has Regine expressing her irritation regarding Synclaire taping over her recording of The Thorn Birds with The Richard Bey Show. Whereas The Thorn Birds has been released on both VHS and DVD and was also reran on television for its various anniversaries (20th, 30th and 35th), copies of Richard Bey and talk shows in general are much more difficult to come by and Synclaire's tape(s) would be considered quite rare.
• Hollywood Homely: Averted. A wide variety of body types and looks are on display, and all of them are presented as attractive.
• Informed Wrongness: Regine in "She Ain't Heavy, She's My Mother". Sure she is very petty and downright disrespectful to her mother but she has every right to be fed up with her mother's overbearing behavior and unreasonable attitude (that edges towards Manipulative Bitch attributes, making her "a pro" in Max's eyes).
• Lady Mondegreen: Not a misheard name, but a misread one. Some fans have read Max's actress's name in the opening credits as Frika Alexander instead of Erika Alexander.
• LGBT Fanbase: The show has found a niche in the gay community, partly due to Queen Latifah's coming out as a lesbian years after the show has ended, but the episodes where the girls go to a Gay Bar and where Max's lesbian college roommate gets married were also very positive depictions of gay culture for its time. The fact that reruns of the show have found a home on LOGO has also bolstered its LGBT fanbase significantly.
• Moral Event Horizon: Although YMMV, in one episode Regine is donating a box of clothes to charity and Max decides to take a coat out of the box and keep it. Even after she's told it was for charity, she decides to keep it, if only because it bothers Regine. What's worse, after irritating Regine with the coat to the point where Regine buys it back from her, Max reveals she actually took the entire box of clothes meant for charity just to tick Regine off. It's Played for Laughs, but how is stealing a box of clothes you know (even after the fact) was meant for charity any different than stealing toys from a Toys For Tots bin, or taking canned goods out of a Feed The Homeless donation box?
• Replacement Scrappy: Tripp was considered one when Kyle left. He didn't have the same sense of humor as he did and none of his charisma or character depth, either.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Less a character example and more of an actress who played one, Erika Alexander was a late-arrival Scrappy on The Cosby Show, however despite this, she seemed to have lost her Scrappy status as Maxine Shaw on Living Single.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • One of Khadijah's serious boyfriends was played by Isaiah Washington and was also a doctor.
  • T.C. Carson is possibly this for gamers as he goes on to voice Kratos. Which makes a Stinger where Overton asks him to open a Box from his aunt Pandora Hilarious in Hindsight.
  • Throw in a young Will Ferrell as a guest on a talk show the women appeared on in the episode "Talk Showdown".
  • Cress Williams played Khadijah's Victorious Childhood Friend Scooter years before becoming a successful voice actor and a DC superhero.
• Seasonal Rot: Many fans of the show claim the 5th season suffered from this.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Season 5 had Overton and Synclaire Happily Married, and have Kyle leave the show only to be replaced by Tripp, both of which were not very well accepted by the older fans of the show.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The series is set quite clearly the 90s, between the multitude of television and musical references, the characters' fashion choices, and the fact that two of them own jobs at magazines (which would die out when most of them would host sites on the internet). The theme song also fits the style of hip-hop in the 1990s, and has the lyric "In a 90's kind of world, I'm glad I got my girls".
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Regine in "Not Quite Mr. Right". The show tries to make her look selfish and whiny for not being supportive of her painter boyfriend Keith's gallery opening as well as asking her to help out with the food and the parking. Although she has been these ways in the past, that night she had good reason to be unhappy with his inattentive nature; he ignores the fact that a man, who is also a bigwig art critic, actively sexually harasses her throughout the night because he wanted a good review even after she told him and he doesn't stop with his advances until Khadijah's employee Russell, not Keith, puts him in his place and their relationship has devolved so much that the only things that seem to interest him are his artwork and sex. Worse, when trying to explain to her friends what happened, they make fun of her for allegedly trying to be the center of attention, for refusing to consider his career and having a big, noticeable run in her pantyhose.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Max ends up being forcibly put on leave from her job as an attorney for giving advice to a client which ended up ending said client's engagement without talking to the law partners first, and then leaves the job because when they brought her back they don't instantly forgive her and give her all her old clients back, despite having broken their trust. We're as an audience supposed to take pity on Max because she lost her job, even though she seems to be perfectly steady financially, continues to to be an uninvited guest in the girl's home and eat all their food, and the only reason she seems to want to work is because she's bored (not that she donates her time to something worthwhile, like, say, a charity or something). Taking in to account how many hard working people living paycheck to paycheck are without jobs with the economy today, its not surprising most people don't shed a tear for Maxine Shaw, Ex-Attorney at Law.
  • As Max and Kyle are hooking up, they bring up their previous sexual encounter that occurred under the influence of alcohol, and how this time if they got together it would by by choice. Max then quips that she has always been "pro-choice", causing Kyle to say that it would be a shame for him not to take advantage of that. Taken to it's literal meaning, Kyle just told Max it would be a shame not to try and get her pregnant since she's all for abortion.
  • Khadijah in "Burglar in the House". After Regine has her bag stolen and the gang talks about getting viable protective measures including a security system and a dog, she dismisses every idea they have out of apathy and to save money. The women are then robbed that very night and he makes off with several items, namely her color television and laptop for work. Yet she ends up whining the most about "my stuff is gone" and complaining that the cops aren't doing enough to retrieve her property or catch the burglar. In addition to it being a low-priority case, especially since none of them were harmed, she probably could have avoided all this if she had listened to her friends' sound advice instead of believing that she was right (like she usually does).
• Values Dissonance:
  • Even with the popularity of the show with the LGBTQ group, some of the episodes come off as insensitive towards them. "Woman to Woman" has Regine acting self-conscious to show off her curves since she thinks that all the lesbians attending Shayla's bachelorette party "wanted" her. Similarly, Kyle flirts with a woman by saying that he "can change the way she thinks" then upon being ignored tries to say that all women are afraid of men.
  • One episode has Regine deciding to become a vegetarian. Whereas this is her decision and unfortunately is still a hotly-debated topic to this day, her friends' lack of support and actively taunting her over this apparently poorly thought-out decision is uncomfortable for some, particularly since their insensitivity and Regine's own crusading, obnoxious behavior which included throwing out all of her roommates' meat products is all Played for Laughs (and made even worse on how she eventually caved in and began eating meat again by the end of the episode).
• Values Resonance: As stated underneath Hollywood Homely, all four female leads are of different body types and not a single one of them are depicted as being despised, undesirable or their main personality traits. Furthermore, while an episode or two may involved one or a group of them dieting and/or exercising, it's not the main storyline nor does it take up more time than it needs to.

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