at the last moment gossip GirlIn the 2007 pilot episode, Angels & Airwaves’ 2006 song “The Gift” opens with an ethereal jingle and spacey guitar riff, Blake Lively’s It Girl Serena Van Serena van der Woodsen and Penn Badgley’s Lonely Boy Dan leave a party hand in hand. As I rewatch this song in 2024 at age 34, this song digs deep into my chest, grabbing hold of my beating heart, urging it to pick up the pace, remember to kiss one as the song plays softly in the car Boy feeling.
I was 16 again, life unfolding before me with passion and hope. Maybe one day I’ll be an It Girl living in New York, and I’ll swim upstream and fall in love with a brooding, artsy, hairy-chested young man. Maybe I’ll hand-sew my own dress based on an expensive designer gown so I can wear something beautiful to a fancy party on the Upper East Side. Maybe I’ll go to college, get a degree, graduate debt-free, and find a job that will give me enough money to buy my own home. It’s all possible, right? Wrong.
rewatch gossip Girl 2024
gossip GirlBased on the YA novel of the same name by Cecily von Ziegesar, it aired on the then-CW show from 2007 to 2012 (though you can watch the whole thing now on the streaming service Max). It weathered the 2008 financial crisis but remains firmly entrenched in the splendor of Manhattan’s elite. It now serves as a window into the world back then, before the housing market crashed, the election of Barack Obama and the subsequent conservative backlash, the dominance of the iPhone, or the proliferation of social media. Watching it now is both shocking and satisfying—it’s so unabashed, so scathing, and so controversial that I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did.
The aforementioned sweet, hopeful gossip Girl Just when bad boy Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick, who once sexual assault charges against him Back in 2017), Dan’s sister Jenny (Taylor Momsen) reminded us in Kristen Bell’s acerbic Gossip Girl narration that Serena will be under the influence of Chuck and her former best friend when school starts on Monday Bullying by Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester). what does it embody gossip Girl It’s a raw snapshot of these things: the random violence against women, the glorification of underage drinking and drug use, the brutal dashing of hopes and dreams, material excess, the near-constant needle drop of the iTunes Top 25, Witty, smart, sarcastic dialogue from disaffected teenagers. Nothing can stuff you into a time capsule, hastily type “2007” into your console, and unceremoniously transport you nearly 20 years back in time. gossip Girl.
It’s a strange feeling, watching all of this as an adult with student loans living in an apartment in Brooklyn that I can barely afford. There is an inadvertent cruelty gossip Girl It defined much of the media of the era and helped create today’s online culture, where horrific insults can be hurled at you from any direction. After all, in an era where emo music reigns supreme and music by self-proclaimed sensitive boys demonizes young women who don’t love them, music dominates my day. Girls growing up at an early age have internalized these ideologies—slut shaming, body shaming, status shaming, style shaming—and they still exist today.
That’s why 2021 gossip Girl The reboot was destined to fail (it failed after just two seasons, although at least it took a page from OG’s book and was mostly shot in New York). It can’t recreate the brutality of the original series without being “canceled,” nor can it present a gender-neutral version of what made the show so popular without being “canceled.” Like scientific phenomena that can only be replicated under the most specific conditions, gossip Girl Probably only existed between 2007 and 2012.
Sure, I’m 34, but only for an hour gossip Girl Taking me back to my teenage self, bringing with it a tidal wave of emotions and memories that washed over me like a sewage-filled wave in the East River. But at least now when I see it, I’m convinced that Chuck Bass is a fucking scumbag and that you should never wear a straw fedora over a cocktail dress. This is growth.
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