Spoilers ahead for Episodes 1 and 2 for And Just Like That.
Gone are the days of getting day drunk at Conde Nast, raiding the fashion closet, getting sexually harassed, and making $4 a word; here are the days of Instagram and podcasts. Carrie Bradshaw's new job (jobs?) in And Just Like That may be a little less "glamorous" than her time as a sex columnist and Vogue freelancer, but she's making work, work.
In the first episode of the HBO Max reboot, we learn that Carrie – who was once a proud Luddite – is running a popular Instagram account. She tells Miranda Hobbs over brunch that she started the account as a hobby, but when she started podcasting, her IG turned into "something bigger." Carrie takes pictures of people she sees out and about with interesting style and posts them to her feed (or maybe her Story?).
Can we assume that Carrie is monetizing her Instagram following? There's no mention of an assistant (shout out Jennifer Hudson) so it's hard to say. Carrie has always been a little aloof toward her income strategy, so it wouldn't be surprising if her account is still "just for fun."
It is clear, though, that Carrie is making money by co-hosting Che Diaz's (Sara Ramirez) show, X,Y, and Me, a podcast that talks about sexual roles, gender roles, and cinnamon rolls. Carrie represents the cis woman perspective on the pod alongside Che, who describes herself as a queer, non-binary, Mexican-Irish diva.
Che mentions that Carrie is the OG in the sex talk space, but tells Carrie to "step her pussy up" and contribute to the more graphic sex talk on their podcast. Carrie seems motivated to get more comfortable sharing and talking about sex in a way she's never been before, which lets us assume that Carrie likes her job on the show and wants to keep it.
Besides the Instagram and podcast, we know from the earlier seasons that Carrie has turned her column into a book (who among us is not picturing Carrie in a Paris bookshop right now) and we learn in Episode 1 of And Just Like That that it's possible she's written more. When explaining why she's no longer friends with Samantha Jones, Carrie says to Miranda, "What can I say, with the book business what it is now, I didn't think it made sense to keep her on as a publicist. She said 'fine,' and then fired me as a friend."
The break up between Samantha and Carrie feels recent (we see in Episode 2 that they were texting in April, and since the show mentions having survived the pandemic, it's plausible that the April in question is April 2021), which hints that the two had been working together as friend/client/publicist for years, up until they stopped. Meaning, of course, that there was likely more than just the one book Carrie published in 2004.
Perhaps later episodes will shed light on Carrie's career over the last 17 years and whether or not there were more books or columns, but for now, it's Instagram and podcast money that's filling (or is it trickling?) into her bank account.