A Love Letter to Gossip Girl; or, Why I Finally Understand Pop Culture

Until I went to graduate school, I was never much of a TV watcher. Anyone I’m remotely close to knows about my lack of pop culture knowledge, and growing up I was more apt to read about a show in TV Guide than actually watch it. (Case in point: Dawson’s Creek. I don’t think I ever actually watched an episode, but realized that if I couldn’t follow what people were talking about at school it would be a social detriment.) Many of my friends talk about the shows they watched in their youth that they want me to watch, but to be honest there are very few shows that I can actually get into. Arrested Development tops the list, and I also watch The L Word (obviously), The West Wing (when it was on), Mad Men and various Bravo series. And then baseball and politics whenever I get a chance, or when I visit my parents, who watch MSNBC and NESN exclusively.

But my television watching has reached fever pitch with Gossip Girl. While I initially dismissed the show last fall when my friends suggested I watch it, it wasn’t until I was in the Dominican Republic last winter that my college friends convinced me that the show had escapist qualities — the same desired escape that drove us all to spend four days laying on the beach, consuming pina coladas sun up till the next sun up. I was sold but waited until January, when I spent many empty hours waiting for gschool to begin again to start watching it. And I was hooked, immediately.

Gossip Girl may be nothing more than guilty pleasure. But the social critique of New York society places it as a modern-day Edith Wharton, or Henry James. The writing may not be brilliant, and Serena may not be May Welland, but it skewers perceptions of the rich to the point where you realize that underneath all the trappings, everyone is exactly the same. Some people simply have maids or private jets. And eternally stylish Edith would love the fashion and houses depicted in the show.

The fashion is something else entirely. While sardonic Vanessa, the Brooklynite, dresses like she is permanently trying to be ironic amidst her social betters, and Serena is too hippy-ish for me, Blair’s headband collection is enough to make me commit murder and her dresses achieve the perfect balance between preppy and classic, which is precisely what I aim for when I get dressed in the morning.

I’m also able to see something of myself in the character of Blair — though I don’t live in a mansion, and I’m not 17 (I remind myself that the actors are actually my age, which makes me feel better), I’m just as much of a ‘crazy bitch’ as Blair is. (No, I’m really not as nice as many of you think I am.) And her relationship with Chuck, the resident scoundrel, parallels several of my romantic entanglements (inability to discuss feelings, desire to hurt each other, etc.)

But I think the show gives me something that I never had before — a chance to fit in with my friends in a pop culture context. To be able to read the New York magazine recaps, to have friends over to watch it (or else discuss it via gchat/iChat with my college friends while sitting on the couch, MacBook on knees), and pick up allusions to the show that other people make in bars is an experience I’ve never had. I get obsessive or fanatical about things from time to time, but if the object of my obsession is media, it’s usually a book or movie — something that ends eventually. But Gossip Girl is a weekly fix, which allows me to indulge my obsession more often.

I’ve gotten less flak for my love of Gossip Girl than I have for say, my love of Garden State. I find secret Gossip Girl fans everywhere and have converted others. What amazes me is that so many well-educated twenty-somethings are just as fanatical as I am. I already know many of you are out there, reading this blog post, following the show with the same frenzy that I do and wondering why, if our lives must have the same problems, we can't also have the long perfect hair, the cravatted boyfriend, or the days of high school anymore, with the empty afternoons.