Gossip Girl 2.0: Everything You Need To Know & the Harms of Social Media
In honor of tomorrow’s reboot…
The OG series
Gossip Girl—the show that was the first to introduce today’s infamous social media ‘influencer.’ Gossip Girl was the anonymous blogger who observed and exposed the lives of “Manhattan’s Elite,” aka the Upper East Siders of New York City. People who lived lavish and glamorous lives who were seemingly untouchable. If you didn’t want to be a part of the Upper East Side squad after watching Gossip Girl, then you wanted to be the one observing them through the blog. Serena Vanderwoodsen, Blair Waldorf, Nate Archibald, and Chuck Bass ruled the Upper East Side, and Gossip Girl documented it all.
However, GG wasn’t the typical blogger you see on social media today—she broke barriers by portraying the dark side the Upper East Side squad experienced that wasn’t accessible to the public. GG took the public inside the true lives of New York City’s ruling class, lives that included but were certainly not limited to (especially with the insane amount of ridiculous plot twists within the show): sabotage, addiction, betrayal, arrests, faked deaths, manipulation, negligent parents, eating disorders, con artists, hidden relatives, malicious “take-downs” (the equivalent to cancel culture), and more. The main characters, all beginning as high schoolers at the prestigious Constance Billard and St. Jude’s led lives resembling those of adults, while the adults in the show seemed to act like teenagers themselves.
Meet the “new” group
The new version of GG is the Gossip Girl reboot, or continuation of the show, coming to HBO Max this summer. According to Cosmopolitan, the HBO Max PR team released details involving the cast for the show. Whitney Peak is apparently our new Dan Humphrey, the somewhat relatable ‘outsider’ who takes us into the untouchable world of the Upper East Siders. Audrey, a main character and student at none other than Constance Billard, is played by Emily Alyn Lind, whose mother is — shocker — an athleisure designer. Sound familiar? Audrey and her boyfriend Aki (Evan Mock) have been dating for “forever,” which in this context certainly means a future marriage, or does it? Audrey’s best friend is teen influencer Julien (Jordan Alexander), which definitely makes it seem as though we’ve been here before. The rest of the group is playboy Max (Thomas Doherty) and rich good samaritan Obie (Elie Brown). Max has the strongest parallel to Chuck Bass, as both are flirty boys who indulge in the party scene. Lastly follows Luna (Zión Moreno), Monet (Savannah Smith), and Kate Keller, played by former fashion blogger turned actress Tavi Gevinson.
Although no one knows what the big “twist” is to the new GG, there is some top secret way it differentiates itself from the original. The storyline is set in a time when the world is back to normal and fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The OG squad (Blair, Serena, etc.) won’t be making any appearances in the show, but the spin off characters do know of their predecessors existence. Also worth noting, the Gossip Girl blog has been turned into more of an “all-encompassing social media platform,” according to Cosmo’s intel.
When asked about their rising fame and the drop of the show to the ever scrutinizing public eye, the cast expressed how nervous they were about how the new attention would alter their lives. Before he was even cast, Eli did a deep clean of his Instagram page. He indicated there was a sense of loss to his social media, as he explained to Cosmo: “It’s like this page no longer belongs to me and my friends. It is this public forum for people to tell me what they think I should be posting and telling me that I’m not posting enough or giving their two cents about this, that, or the other. That kind of draws me away from it.”
Social media has become so much more than the friendly Instagram page featuring pictures of friends or family, it has become your reputation, a brand of who you are and what you stand for. One slip up, and it's done. Social media has opened a new door for people to tear each other apart. Bullies are no longer just in the classroom, they lurk in every corner of the Internet.
In a sense, social media does more harm than good. It not only provides a platform for hate, but also inflicts pain, unhappiness, dissatisfaction, jealousy and anxiety into our lives. As they always say, “Comparison is the thief of joy,” and boy is that true when it comes to social media. People portray their seemingly perfect lives with their fancy accessories, big houses, perfect bodies, perfect life partners and relationships, excessive travel and luxury — the ultimate aesthetic. But something about the way Gossip Girl exposes this aesthetic reminds us that no matter how wealthy you become, there are many problems money simply cannot fix.
Tune in tomorrow on HBO Max to see your favorite series—this time, round two! XOXO. See the official trailer below.
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Featured image found here. Photo credits: The CW.