Most of us remember sitting in front of the TV when Netflix was still delivering DVDs instead of a streaming service with no commercials, and you turned on the CW to watch Gossip Girl. We grew up wanting to be free-spirited like Serena Van Der Woodsen, having the wardrobe of Blair Waldorf. We fantasized about having a man like Nate Archibald and Chuck Bass, we couldn’t figure out if we loved or hated Dan Humphrey.
When I was younger I dreamed about living in the Upper East Side, attending some private school finding my Nate Archibald and being the queen. I idolized those girls how they were able to just get up and leave to Europe on a private jet to run around Paris. The way they went to parties and clubs, the fashion, nine-year-old me ate that up.
Now I am 21 years old, I decided to revisit my childhood, and suddenly a lot of it doesn’t add up. The show starts with them being 15-16 years old, and they went into bars and freely drank. They stayed out until 1 or 2 am, and even with all the money in the world, I do not think that drinking underage is allowed anywhere. It was so casual too, they knew the names of each of the characters and still gave them a scotch on the rocks. The men and women that they dated, many of them would be considered illegal in many states. Then you have the confusing fact on how even with everything falling apart and even with lawsuits surrounding them, they remain unscathed.
In all honesty, this show is surrounded by characters who are toxic and watching it now you can’t help but slightly hate them for making the same mistake they made 7 episodes ago. They seem to be set on keeping secrets from each other and set on destroying the people that they claim are their family. Take Serena and Blair’s friendship for example, they focus on their status so much and who is right that they end up just becoming this toxic pair. Then you look at Chuck, who when I was younger I assumed was troubled and that made him so interesting to me, but now watching it. It’s as if he was suffering from depression and alcoholism, and while some of his problems were addressed they never really did anything to make a change happen. They just passed it off as another rich guy problem.
It makes me curious how they would set up this show in today’s world because a hacker could easily track the IP address of Gossip Girl and figure out who it was in the first season. There would be a lot more TikTok and rich kids flexing on YouTube. While I still immensely enjoy the drama that is heightened, and the love triangles and then some. The scandalous lives of the elite, and hearing Kirsten Bell’s voice.