This essay will attempt to explain why its audience including the author of this essay enjoy the programme “Gossip Girl”. The theme of the programme and the main characters will be discussed. The following paragraphs will discuss the social divide regarding the characters, those from the Upper East Side and those from Brooklyn. An attempt will be made to determine when discussing the characters and their background, whether it is the case that the audience are identifying with the characters and therefore the reason for “Gossip Girl’s” popularity.
Within the program “Gossip Girl” there are 16 characters, the main one being “Gossip Girl” themselves. The characters all have very different roles and backgrounds. Within the next few paragraphs, they will be discussed and talked about how they portrayed within the programme. In the first episode, the audience are introduced to two of the main characters, Serena Van Der Woodsen and Blair Waldorf. Both these characters are from the Upper East Side, they are the socialites of their school and every girl at their school looks up to them.
Except when we get deeper into the series it turns out, they are bad role models, with the likes of Serena who was known for her use of recreational drugs, her obsessive drinking and girl next door partying lifestyle. Then we come to Blair Waldorf, Serena’s best friend. At the beginning, Serena and Blair’s friendship was nonexistent, once again because of Serena’s partying ways. Like any friendship, Serena and Blair had their fall outs, which brought the worst out in Blair. Blair Waldorf was not the sweetheart, who would not hurt anybody, like everyone thought.
She was in fact the only person who could hurt Serena more than anyone by posting her secrets to gossip girl. “Gossip Girl” was a phenomenon within the real life Upper East Side and surrounding communities such as Brooklyn. No matter where you stood on the social ladder, her posts would obsess you. In the series, Gossip Girl was always voiced as a female, she would make sure everyone knew she had eyes everywhere, ready to email her with tip offs about the next big scandal so she could post it to the website.
As far as everyone was concerned, Gossip Girl was not your friend, she was there cause drama, and she definitely did. She would make all the characters doubt themselves. Only in the final episode do we find out that in fact, everything Gossip Girl did and posted was for the good and that Gossip Girl was one of the main characters from the TV show. Dan Humphrey was introduced into the show when he started dating Serena Van Der Woodsen. Serena and Dan made a very controversial couple because of their very different lives.
Serena was from the Upper East Side, she had money and she got what she wanted just because her name, however Dan Humphrey was from Brooklyn, he did not have money and had to work for everything he wanted. Some of the characters did not agree with Serena and Dan being together because of their different lives and social standing. Blair Waldorf and Chuck Bass were two of the characters who were vocal about it out of the ordinary. Blair and Chuck gave Dan Humphrey the nickname of “Lonely Boy”, this is because he was not from their world although they went to the same private school and paid the same fees, Dan was different.
He came from Brooklyn; he lived with his sister and dad in a loft apartment whereas Chuck lived a lavish life living in his father’s hotel and off his father’s money. Chucks and the other characters from the Upper East Side lives revolved around sex, drugs, money and high fashion. These two worlds came colliding together when Dan finally got acceptance from the Upper East Side group of friends. The audience of “Gossip Girl” was a worldwide trend, no matter where you went people were captivated. The show had a target demographic of women between eighteen and thirty-four years old and they definitely exceeded that.
They had women of all ages watching their show, women from France, America, and London, all over the world “Gossip Girl” was being watched. It got to the point “Gossip Girl” was so popular that an audience grew in China and began watching it but illegally. Not only did the individuality of each character resonate with the audience but also the suspense of not knowing whom “Gossip Girl” was as well as not knowing when it would be revealed left the audience wanting more. Within the show, they talked about drinking, drug use and sex.
The characters were portraying what teenagers really do this helped many viewers identify with the storylines. Towards the end of “Gossip Girl”, everyone had his or her theories on who it was. For a little while it was known that Serena Van Der Woodsen had gotten hold of the website, many viewers believed it was still her, some thought Blair. Nobody was expecting the twist of it not only being a male character but it being “Lonely Boy”, Dan Humphrey. The one character that “Gossip Girl” targeted most, as well as Serena.
This was Dan’s way into the Upper East Side other than his on, off relationship with Serena. In summation, one of the reasons this programme was so popular could be that ordinary people identified with the characters and the social problem the characters were going through. An additional contributory factor in popularity is the advertising for the programme. Wherever you went, there would be a posters, billboards and social media going crazy for the next episode. Even if people were not watching it, the advertisement and marketing was so prominent that they started too just to find out whom “Gossip Girl” was.
