I’ve done a bad thing. I was bored, I was alone, I was feeling frisky… and I started to binge watch Gossip Girl.
I watched the first season back when it was relevant aired. I must have been in eighth grade, and I went to public school in New York City. The show was fascinating. Lounging in my American Eagle pajamas, I endlessly pondered: How realistic was this portrayal of NYC prep schools? Was this what my life would be like if I didn’t have a 9:30 p.m. curfew? Would I ever be as hot as Blake Lively? So many thoughts plagued my mind, but soon the show’s quality plummeted, and channels like HBO opened up a whole other realm of questions for my teenage brain.
As I confessed initially, I have recently been re-watching Gossip Girl – Season 1. Unfortunately, instead of serving as my guilty pleasure, the series has started to send me into blind rages. New questions arise: Why is this soft core porn? How did this plot not foreshadow the Wall Street bailout? Why did Blair Waldorf convince everyone that headbands could be attractive??
I went on Buzzfeed in hopes of finding a listicle defaming the clown parade that is the CW, but I located nothing. Alas, I will have to write my own vent post. I may have not grown up to be as hot as Blake Lively, but our boobs are of comparable sizes. I hope this enables me to make some enlightened observations on the show.
First, the premise: An anonymous, online identity known as “Gossip Girl” cyber bullies a lot of high school kids via text message subscriptions. If this were based on a true story, GG would be working for the NSA now. Second, everyone in the show is obscenely rich. We’re talking multiple private jets, living in five star hotels, and taking limos to school. Oh, except for the two token “poor kids” – they only get a snazzy, 3 bedroom loft in Brooklyn. Their elevator does not open directly into their apartment, thus they are constantly mocked by their peers.
Our “poor” protagonists are on partial scholarship at these elite Manhattan private schools (whose curriculums involve modeling cardigans and plaid skirts). Instead of focusing on their school work, and being grateful for the sacrifices their parents made for this opportunity, the brother sister duo embark on a climb up the social ladder. Third, all of the parents are completely inept when it comes to raising children, so all of these 16 year olds binge drink and do cocaine.
Sounds pretty bad, huh? Well, just as I was ready to chastise Gossip Girl for being such a poor influence on young teenagers, I realized something: I watched the show, and I didn’t misbehave in high school, nor did I disproportionately value luxury. How did so many of the young viewers remain immune to the toxic example that primetime was setting? Well, Gossip Girl is actually a hyperbolic example of the timeless phrase, “Money can’t buy you happiness.” Even if I couldn’t deduce that all of the characters were leading miserable lives, I was so separate from that world that 13-year-old me probably thought this show was dumb.
The only thing I had in common with Jenny Humphrey was the tragic mistake of excessive eyeliner.
That is, until I got a scholarship and attended Brown University. (Serena van der Woodsen’s dream school, FYI). Now, I know that my family could never afford a loft as hipster-chic as the one the Humphrey’s resided in. I also know people who travel across oceans on long weekends and people who live in mansions, and some of them are my friends. I am on the precipice of two distinct universes, and it can be disorienting. Perhaps it is my recent, socioeconomic upward mobility that has GG hitting a gag reflex, and not an accruement of 7 more years of wisdom.
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