In the national post there is a story about how Gossip Girl is almost entirely an online phenomenon. The full story is here but highlights include:
If you judged the show by online presence alone, it would rank with American Idol, Lost and other top-rated programs; indeed, at the time of writing, three Gossip Girl episodes were in the Top 10 on iTunes (U. S. only). But offline it flounders, hovering around 2.5 million viewers per episode.
“It’s partially that the people who love Gossip Girl tend to be the kind of people who are more vocal on the internet than other people,”
This has left a lot of people wondering what is going wrong???I don’t have all the answers but I’m gonna go ahead and go with what I like to call my Cory Kennedy theory.
I grew up in Davenport, Iowa and I’ve spent the last 6 years primarily in Los Angeles. The things people think are “hip” are obviously very different in those 2 places.
When I moved to LA at 16 I thought being rich meant you wore all Abercrombie and Fitch and had a new jeep grand cherokee. Keep in mind I was pretty well traveled and informed amongst most of my peers yet I had no idea what a Balenciaga bag was and would have valued a Panerai in the same ballpark as a Fossil watch.
This might not make any sense just yet, but the concept of “wealth” is a huge theme on Gossip Girl and in the real world as well. In major cities (San Francisco, New York, LA, Chicago, Paris, London, etc.) kids come up to me and ask me if I know “Cory Kennedy” on the regular. She’s a fashion icon no doubt and it’s been amazing to watch her blow up, she’s always been a sweetheart and she deserves all the success in the world. That said when I play in cities like Atlantic City, NJ or Jacksonville,FL (cities that more acccurately reflect the bulk of America) kids constantly ask me if I know Hanna Beth and Audrey Kitching. It’s an interesting thing really, because all of these girls are popular because of their fashionista status. And while their age, location, musical tastes, and friends are very similar their fan demographics are pretty different.
It seemed weird at first, but I think the comparison of the Cory Kennedy brand and the Gossip Girl brand work. They both have a very select but very passionate following for a lot of the same reasons. I think wealth and some of the knowledge that comes from bigger cities, is the only thing holding back Gossip Girl from doing better in the ratings. What both of these brands gain from portraying exclusive lifestyles might be the same thing that holds them back from super crossover appeal…
Herein lies the same fault that every “exclusive” brand has to overcome. The bulk of Cory’s fans live in major metropolitan areas and similarly can identify with Gossip Girl on a lot of levels. These people go to Hyde and Beatrice, shop at Bendels and Maxfields and understand that the Balenciaga bag Blair Waldorf or Cory is carrying is fucking dope. On the other hand most of america is much like naive Iowa me, they don’t see a Ostrich Salvatore Ferragamo handbag. They see a yellow bag.
This might not look like a lot on the surface but I think a lot of people (myself included) watch things and idolize people because it gives us a chance to fantasize about a lifestyle we’d like to attain. If you can’t comprehend the lifestyle Gossip Girl is conveying why are you gonna watch? The plots aren’t any different than any boy meets girl high school drama 90210,OC, whatever show. The only real difference for me is that these people are doing things that I would enjoy doing (and sometimes do haha).
So if only a few people understand the show and identify with it, why is it getting so much attention?
This question has a million answers but one might be that, the same people who can identify with Cory and Gossip Girl are a small but powerful bunch. Obviously they are very passionate about the things they are into and use their “big city” power to get really amazing press for the things they like. This however doesn’t always turn into results for the brands they want to push, sometimes the concepts conveyed by their icons and their tv shows (Gossip Girl, Freaks and Geeks, Arrested Development) just don’t reverberate with the rest of the world.
I sincerely believe that if gossip girl made their characters more relatable on the surface (meaning places they visit, clothes they wear, names they drop) it would be doing a lot better in the ratings, that said I would have zero interest in the show. The only reason I give a fuck is because this show deals with events and places that I deal with on the regular.
This is of course why American Idol is the biggest show in the US and Gossip Girl gets shitty ratings. I just think that most of America understands rhinestone skulls and graphic tees, and really doesn’t get The Virgins and Philip Lim.
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Does any of this shit really matter? Why do you think Gossip Girl is getting shitty Ratings? People kept asking me to actually “write.” Well I just wrote, should I go back to posting dumb youtube videos? lol
21 responses so far ↓
1 justin kase // May 18, 2008 at 1:42 am
more videos and/or references to i am baby cakes or china, Il.
on the srs.
whotf watches tv anyway?
2 Tyler O // May 18, 2008 at 2:57 am
Skeet, this is really well done. I have never watched the show so I have no say on it, but good job.
3 jodie // May 18, 2008 at 8:14 am
I would say a lot of people that watch the show also read the books religiously. Even though the show doesn’t follow the books very well it’s still in the same ballpark.
4 Billy // May 18, 2008 at 8:47 am
I’m sorry for starting at the end, but I really feel that you should be encouraged to write shit like this. It is not very difficult to embed YouTube videos and funny pictures you find in the internet to your blog; it is stuff like this that I come here for, or any blog for that matter. Don’t get me wrong, all that random stuff you find is funny and interesting as fuck but I, too, need something that makes me read and think from time to time.
That said, I think that you’re absolutely right about the reason why Gossip Girl doesn’t have a bigger audience. Not that being in the CW helps them much, but it is exactly being in the CW that allows it to be the show it is; when it comes to higher-rated TV networks only a few exceptions are, like Gossip Girl, not driven by what sponsors and big executives want on their shows. As you explained here, Gossip Girl has a choice of making its characters more “relatable” to people in small cities and towns, but they it would completely lose its essence. It is, then, obvious that the people indentifying with Gossip Girl ARE “a powerful bunchâ€. Powerful enough to make it the phenomenon it is.
“They see a yellow bag”. Now, that is easily your strongest point, since the desire for a better lifestyle is what drive people watching Gossip Girl the way you do (for what separates it from any other “boy meets girl high school dramaâ€) to succeed, and make it big in life. Most of the time, people in small cities base their life expectations on family history and that makes them lose any chance of succeeding. It is this desire I talk about that is lost in those cases.
How many viewers, do you think, that watch Gossip Girl live the lifestyle people in the show live? My guess would be that, unlike your case, “not too many”. You don’t see many characters making time for the favorite shows (of course there are exceptions like Summer from The OC, making time to watch “The Valley”). But I do believe that there are many of them who will, as soon as the episode ends, look for what their favorite characters were wearing, even if it is only to be surprised by the sky-high, unaffordable price tag. But what’s the price of dreaming? Or better yet, what’s the price of ambitioning and aspiring?
It is what makes winners in life, winners. Lack thereof is what makes losers, losers.
Last, let me finish by going back to the beginning and let you know that you should KEEP on “posting dumb YouTube videos†but only as a complement to this kind of and thought-inducing, although sporadic material.
Keep on keeping on, Skeet!
Billy
5 BILLY BOB JACOBS // May 18, 2008 at 11:02 am
please delete this blog. that has to be the gayest thing i’ve read all day.
6 Skeet Skeet // May 18, 2008 at 11:45 am
haha good to see the mixed reviews. im definitely not a writer, but maybe i’ll find a happy medium where i write in depth about lolcats or something.
7 Billy // May 18, 2008 at 12:06 pm
That’s exactly right, Skeet hahaha
I don’t watch Gossip Girl, but If I wanted to discuss something serious, I’d go to Anderson Cooper’s blog
Bring on the lolcatz articles hahaha. .
8 Kitching is Fetching (me a boner) // May 18, 2008 at 12:19 pm
I think I’ve got a paper ready for my “America, The Fronteir, and the New West” class post summer!
Just bear in mind that no matter what you post, this blog will be easier to read five years from now (or seven months for that matter) than others…
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:rXxaI7cPU3IJ:www.lovebostongirl.com/2007/09/boys-wearing-skinny-jeans.html+douchebags+with+fossil+watches&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us&client=safari
9 alfie // May 18, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I really liked your post, especially since I too, like to think that one day I might be flying high as our friends in Gossip Girl does every day.
Your writing is great, keep on posting longer blogposts about “serious” stuff like this. It makes your blog a more interesting read.
Funny YouTube videos are still much appreciated!
10 sphere // May 18, 2008 at 9:57 pm
ok sort of a response to a response above me somewhere and a response to this in general…
i read all the book and freaking love them, but this show is something i do not love. i feel like if they actually based it way more on the book, it would be way more intersting and easier to watch. maybe that’s just me, but there is plenty of drama in the books that the show would be a hit, i mean it was called the “sex and the city for the younger set.”
and i think you should keep writing entries like this every now and then, mix it up and get us thinking sometimes.
11 THE WORLLLLD // May 19, 2008 at 12:10 am
OMG ITS ABOUT TIME YOU STARTED TALKING ABOUT REAL ISSUES!
WE ARE HANGING ON TO YR EVERY WORD SKEET SKEET!
PS LUV YR STEEEZ. YOU ARE SO WELL GROOMED!1!11!1!
12 Me // May 19, 2008 at 9:00 am
I would have to disagree. I live in Salt Lake City…I know about the brands and places on GC. I have access to fashion magazines and the internet.
I love GC as do all my friends. We love fashion and the show would not be as appealing if the characters wore abercrombie and fitch and/or fossil watches. I don’t think you have to “live the same lifestyle” as characters on show to enjoy nor do I think you have to live in a certain demographic to recognize fashion. And YES I know who Cory Kennedy is. PS I love your blog
13 Carles // May 19, 2008 at 10:53 am
This is the best Eatskeet post of all time.
Post more skull graphic tee humor.
14 Sarah Morrison // May 20, 2008 at 5:40 am
you write this all by your self? seriously. ive never seen so many words. im proud
15 camille // May 21, 2008 at 10:07 am
someone should do a thesis on gossip girl and by someone i mean you.
i agree with you mostly….except you don’t blame anything on the writing staff. from the few episodes i’ve seen, the characters are flat and one-dimensional and the plotlines are just rehashed teen dramz. i know you love the show, but the fact is the material simply isn’t strong enough.
it’s all about wealth and dazzle in this case. and the wealth and dazzle in gossip girl is generally not accessible. we’re not talking about rich like, OC rich. we’re talking wealth. old money, private schools, stocks, bonds, lasting power, NY wealth. who can identify with that? we LA kids can get it, because we grew up with rolls royces and jimmy choos all up in our faces all day, but NY money is still a completely different echelon.
the reason girls like audrey and whoever hannabeth is because they represent suburbia. girls in the LA and NY scene simply do not look like that. we don’t have pink hair and asymmetrical cuts. kids in the valley are still getting lip rings. you know?
i dunno. i do like the show’s wardrobe, because i do recognize the names they’re dropping and i can spot YSLs a mile away, but if i didn’t, the show would hold no interest content-wise.
the pen is mightier than the erin fetherston hair accessory
16 danielle // May 21, 2008 at 11:49 am
i just wanted to say good job because you clearly put thought into this and i am commending your efforts
17 Caroline // May 21, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Your theory is very insightful. I couldn’t agree more.
18 maryb // May 21, 2008 at 11:54 pm
i really like your blog.
i admit that i’ve never read the gossip girl books, but i do watch the show pretty religiously and when i try to figure out WHY i hold such a fascination with it, i have a hard time pinpointing one solid reason. yes, some of the story lines and typical teenage dramas but what really holds my interest is the backdrop of the city and the glamour and scandal and money and CLOTHES (oh my god, the clothes). i can confidently say that if ‘gossip girl’ took place in like, kansas and they all wore abercrombie and carried rainbow-y dooney and burke bags, i wouldn’t be interested. i could go to my local public highschool and see that.
their scandalous lifestyle and the way that they use their money and power and their style captivates me.
and i think it’s cool when one of the girls is like “omg, look at my new Nanette Lepore!” and i can be like hey, i have one of those too.
(but this relation only goes so far, that’s why i tune in)
19 Mall0ry // May 23, 2008 at 10:29 am
I didn’t read the rest of the comments because they’re long so sorry if this was said…
I think you made a lot of good points… I think what you were sort of sidestepped is the huge role that logos play. On the OC, every once in a while Marisa would wear a Chanel necklace or bag (in fact when she switched schools her display of logos was pointed out to her as why she was getting shit), but most of her stuff was just neutrally expensive. I’ve yet to notice any Gossip Girl bitches carrying a Louis Vuitton or rocking a logo of any kind. When Cory blew up all the message boards talked about her Chanel shoes (I honestly don’t know why I know this), while other things she wore were far more unique and by designers of equal or greater status. This is the major differentiator… why the super rich kids from the Midwest, or the rich kids you see on My Super Sweet 16 who are like, the only really rich kid in their upper-middle-class-income-range town, are all decked out in Chanel, Coach, Louis Vuitton and (sometimes, if they’re younger or way annoying) Dooney and Bourke, while the rich kids in LA are in Balenciaga, Ferragamo and what have you. It’s not even that the people buying and wearing these items lack of knowledge of these different designers , but rather that their peers do. So, in order to have their spending justified (by the items being clearly recognizable as expensive), the brands that splash their logos all over everything are the ones that they go for.
20 Somebody // May 26, 2008 at 4:08 pm
That theory sounds fine, but the statistics just don’t back it up. You’re like, half-right.
Gossip Girl is getting as many viewers as those shows that you claim “most of Americans understand,” but the current ratings system (Nielsen) isn’t set up to count those viewers.
Your Cory Kennedy reference might woo these kids, but it ain’t fooling me. It’s a basic principle of American pop culture that the masses want to ascend to a higher status in society, (which is what enables celebrity culture in the first place). Gossip Girl IS successful because it displays the sort of ornate wealth that most Americans are conditioned to dream about, just like American Idol is successful because it shows average people attaining similar wealth.
Anyways, awesome topic, but you’re way off base.
21 memento mori // May 28, 2008 at 12:25 am
this was easily the smartest thing i’ve read in a long time. and i’m a phd student.
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