5 reasons why Gossip Girl is still the best series ever
Gossip Girl first hit our screens 10 years ago and quickly became a cult classic. Depicting the lives of Manhattan’s wealthy elite, the show hooked a generation on the lives of Blair, Serena and their shenanigans, inspiring some of the hottest fashion looks of the decade. When it first aired, binge-watching was not a thing, a Samsung slide phone was the height of sophistication and men with straightened hair were considered heartthrobs. We could all relate to Serena and Blair’s friendship, even if we couldn’t relate to their wealth, and we were desperate to have a closet like anyone other than Rufus. Many shows have tried to come close to Gossip Girl, but none have ever succeeded – and they probably never will. Gossip Girl tours are still huge in New York and we’re all still waiting for a 90210 style reboot. But while we wait, here is why Gossip Girl was the best show on television.
1. The boys
Despite some shady behavior from Chuck in the first season and Dan’s obsession (which led him to create a site which outed all of his friend’s misgivings), the guys in Gossip Girl provided the first material for teenage crushes. Nate was a favorite among girls wishing to settle down and find a boy they can proudly take to family events. Dan was a favorite of bookish types who tend to be into tortured souls. When he stopped straightening his hair and wearing bolo ties, bad boy Chuck was a favorite of anyone with a pulse. They may not be around on our screens every week, but if you’re still yearning for your Gossip Girl man, dating site Badoo has a function which allows you to search for people who look like your celebrity crushes. Perhaps you’ll find your Prince Charming after all.
2. The Closets
The closets of most teenage girls comprise of a mixture of clothes that their mum keeps buying for them (tags still on) and clothes from Target which seemed cute at the time. But mostly we all wore jeans and a t-shirt to school. In Gossip Girl world, jeans and a t-shirt were never an option and closets were bigger than kitchens. Girls would watch, dividing themselves into Blairs or Serenas, depending on whether their dress sense was preppy and girly or wild and rebellious. For those with a wilder streak, Jenny’s rock chick fashion sense ignited imaginations and brought “khol” eyeliner out of the shadows (where it perhaps should have stayed). Blair’s ruffle shirts and pussy bows began to take over catwalks and we all started to wear blazers with everything. For some, it was the first time they had ever defined their fashion sense and most have hopefully grown out of wearing a look that can only be defined as “Blair’s school uniform” on a daily basis.
3. The Parties
Underage drinking aside, Gossip Girl parties were the sort to which we all wanted to be invited. There was always an excuse for a party and that came with canapes, haute couture and a whole heap of drama. Our own school formals would never match up to a Constance’s affair: with masked balls, an impromptu party in the school pool and chart-topping bands playing at the winter prom, our own spring fling never stood a chance. That didn’t stop us marveling at the dresses and soaking up all of the drama, hoping that one day we would make friends with someone who had a new hotel opening every month, just so we could try the vol-au-vents.
4. The Drama
The drama in Gossip Girl is unparalleled by any other teen drama. You could bet that any new character would probably turn out to be evil and it wouldn’t be long before they turned Serena and Blair against one another. Whenever you thought something was going really well, Georgia would turn up. And who can forget the Ivy Dickens/Lola/Charlie Rhodes drama spanning three seasons? For those who rooted for Chuck and Blair, the ongoing drama of their relationship was probably one of the biggest reasons for watching the series and the pay off may have been better than uncovering Gossip Girl’s identity which, at best, left many confused and most questioning why Dan would choose to out his friends and sister at crucial moments.
5. The parents
Why were your parents never that chill about you going to bars on a weekday when you should have been revising for your SATs? Especially when they had paid an extreme amount of money for you to attend such an elite school. Eleanor Waldorf was a fashion designer and mostly out of the country, Lily Van Der Woodsen was a socialite and, although you would have had to deal with a new stepfather on a frequent basis, how good would it have been to have a mother that chilled out about her fifteen-year-old daughter spending an entire summer in Europe? The best parent of all has to be Rufus Humphrey. Rufus was arguably the best parent in the series: he frequently made waffles for his guests, solved his kids’ problems and worked out of his arty loft space in Brooklyn. When Dan and Serena were seeing each other, he made the decision to forgo a relationship with Lily in order for his son to be happy. Now that’s parenting.
Most people who were obsessed with Gossip Girl in the 2000s are most likely owners of the box set and will have binged the entire series more than 800 times since 2012. They’re the ones who will continue to share Gossip Girl related memes and quote the most memorable moments. The today’s youth will never know what it is like to sit and watch one episode of their favorite show and wait another week to see whether Chuck and Blair will ever be together. We owe it to the next generation to raise awareness of what was possibly the best television show ever created and never let go of its legacy. XOXO, Gossip Girl.