Network television— once teeming with America’s darlings gracefully stumbling through life’s tiny obstacles—seems to be undergoing a fundamental shift. The Rachels, Monicas and Phoebes of yesteryear are a rarity, only to be seen well after dark at the tail end of TBS or Nick at Nite, sandwiched between The Cosby Show and The King of Queens. The fabulously flawed women of Sex and the City have been flattened and preserved in our cultural history, hailed as pioneers and pushed aside to make way for the quirkier, funnier, frumpier and hungrier young women of today. From popular tumblrs like whatshouldwecallme to new shows like Broad City, it is as if creators and consumers alike are collectively cutting the crap and embracing average looking women who lead lifestyles filled with relatable guilty pleasures, poor life decisions and questionable fashion choices.

Finally, it seems we are seeing some version of ourselves on television. No, I am not talking about the “adorkable” Zooey Deschanel who tries to pass off clumsiness as some reassurance that “hey, nobody’s perfect!” Just because you wear glasses and trip once a week does not mean you’re an average jane. I am talking about Amy Schumer, who, in a four minute sketch managed to sum up my feelings every time that middle school friend turned model pops up in my instagram feed. After seeing that Amy’s couples counselor is Sports Illustrated cover girl Chrissy Teigen, Amy pulls out her chapstick, slowly and pitifully applying it before stepping into her office, a hilarious and ineffective attempt to lessen the physical inadequacies that we feel every time we flip through Vogue or sit through that Carls Jr. commercial.

Schumer and others like her go to great lengths to assure the viewer that they’re not the only one who has felt inferior, who has been rejected or embarrassed or has woken up to 16 outgoing unanswered texts after drinking a heinous amount the night before. They ease us into dealing with our perceived shortcomings by laughing at them. Suddenly we’re seeing women make cringe worthy mistakes and can think to ourselves “koof, I’ve been there,” or for those of you with a few ounces of self control, you can reassuringly pat yourselves on the back. Either way, we no longer have to watch three different versions of the poor girl who’s gotten herself into a kerfuffle because she agreed to two dates in one night. A dilemma no doubt ensued by multiple costume changes and concluding in a couple of handsome and agitated guys.

Leading ladies of television no longer need to fit into that perfectly imperfect mold that their predecessors squeezed into. Media Studies Professor and cultural critic Anne Helen Peterson have coined these female characters ,“unruly women,” a term used to describe those who refuse to be confined to “proper feminine boundaries.” Some of Mindy Kaling’s favorite go-to comedic tropes are her unsuccessful attempts to define herself within these classic feminine boundaries. She refers to herself as a “dainty asian woman,” or complains about her tiny ankles, struggling to hold up her equally “birdlike” body. Kaling very self-consciously uses these stereotypical female traits, finding comedy in the space between her real and imagined self. When we laugh at this, we laugh at just how ridiculous such traditional images are and accept that very few of us will ever embody them.

Women like Schumer and Kaling have been lauded as today’s anti-heroines, defying convention one joke at a time and never faltering in their commitment to authenticity. Female and male viewers alike are welcoming such representations with open arms. These women are not the first to admit that they don’t spend their free time jogging or bantering at their corner coffee shop, the mundane and mediocre have always existed, however, until shows like The Mindy Project, Broad City and Girls, it’s largely existed outside of the media sphere. Women have been getting high, eating hamburgers and having uncomfortable sexual experiences for ages, but we’re just now getting to watch them do it on TV.

I say the more real representations of women the merrier and look forward to the day when getting a size 8 on TV does not have to be hailed as an achievement, when women like Ilana and Abbi from Broad City are no longer examples of the “unruly” and when we can all acknowledge that Girls is closer to “reality television” than Keeping up with the Kardashians.