HBO Max takes us back to the Upper East Side with a new perspective
As someone who is a part of Gen Z, I sadly did not get to live through the era of the original Gossip Girl. I was, however, a part of the large group of people my age who were able to binge it on streaming services like Netflix and fully immerse myself into the culture of the early 2000s Upper East Side of New York City for hours at a time, which I think was a worthwhile experience as well. When I heard there was going to be a new Gossip Girl, I was a bit hesitant to watch it when it came out last summer on HBO Max. After finally getting around to watching it this past winter break, I have a lot of thoughts.
Something I think is really important to preface about this season is that it is not about the original Gossip Girl crew. Although certain characters are briefly mentioned, and Blair’s mom makes an appearance, the spinoff mostly follows brand new characters. These new characters are still socialites, but have the new twist of being in the public eye as not only children of the wealthy, but also as influencers on social media. One thing that I really did not love right off the bat about this show is that they referenced the pandemic. I wish that show writers would recognize that people do not want that, especially when it is just randomly mentioned in passing and does not affect the plot at all.
While the original Gossip Girl was a blog that the original crew kept up with on their phones and via mass messages, the new Gossip Girl utilizes Instagram to send out incoming drama and tips. Another difference between the reboot and the original is that the person running the Gossip Girl account is known to the watchers of the show from the beginning in the reboot. I liked this aspect of the story because there is behind-the-scenes drama surrounding the DMs that the Gossip Girl account receives but does not publicly post. It is also run by more than one person, which creates a power dynamic that is interesting to watch play out.
An aspect of this show that I really enjoyed more than the original is that it was more diverse, not only in portraying people of different ethnicities, but also different sexualities. Although it does fall back on some stereotypes, like pansexual or bisexual folks being permiscuous, I think overall the diversity made it more interesting to watch. I also liked how fast paced it was. It felt like a million things happened every single episode and nobody’s friendship with or viewpoints of another character were the same at the beginning and end of a given episode. I can see how that may be off-putting to some, but as someone whose attention span was ruined by TikTok, I can appreciate a fast-moving plot.
Overall, I would say if you need something mindless and silly to binge, the Gossip Girl reboot is definitely worth the watch. Although I think it does have a pretty different vibe than the original old money aesthetic of the original, the new money or flashy perspective of these new characters was just as interesting to me.