Gossip Girl Gets Schooled

After weeks of checking and re-checking our DVR to make sure everything was set to record, last night we finally had the opportunity to mercilessly mock the premiere of CW’s newest teen sensation, Gossip Girl. And after finally seeing it, we discovered it was equal parts amazing, habit-forming and tragically unrepresentative of Upper East Side adolescence.

“My friends last night were shocked when I told them that all the prep school kids really did take the public bus to school,” confesses one indignant Trinity alumnus.

And that’s just the beginning. To learn more about the disconnect between fact and fiction, we thought we’d call up our favorite prep school brats once more to re-explore the snooty world of the upper upper middle-class. The reviews, anecdotes and crazy misconceptions, told in the communal we (so as to preserve anonymity) after the jump.

Before we get started, we thought we’d first start you off with a general list of our joint observations about last night’s premiere.

1. All of the so-called popular kids are completely devoid of personality, with the exception of Chuck, who quickly establishes himself as a sociopathic date-rapist.
Given that we saw him force himself on not one but two unwilling female participants, was the “staring at the people having sex from the balcony scene” really necessary? (”So creepy. Unrealistically creepy. Who’s that creepy??”)

2. The boys are as attractive as they are ill-tempered.
“Nate is very pretty. Like, long eyelashes pretty. But he’s so broody. My friend was like, ‘Are we going to have to deal with his brooding stares all season?’” We hope not!

3. The sex on the bar was totally hot.
“Unless, like in the book, it’s the first time for both Serena and Nate, in which case it’s actually a little gross and sort of sad.”

4. The “Seth Cohen” character is not nearly as cool as Seth Cohen.
Also, their obnoxious private school is not that big, hence “the cool kids” would still recognize “Dan” in spite of his being “arty and misunderstood.”

5. Blair is approximately 100 times more attractive than Sabrina.
Related: Are we alone in thinking the musician dad is hot?

So, what else is there to say about the over-privileged set who binge-drink daily, have black-tie galas instead of fourth period and try to “seal the deal” with the ladies (Seriously, who says that?) by luring them with promises of free grilled-cheese? Um, plenty.

“For one thing,” gripes one former private schoolers, “their prep school parties were way better than our fabulous prep school parties. Which is to say we never went to a party that ended up in the two attractive popular people doing it on a bar.”

[Ed: Although we do recall this one time when a kid was “sniffing glue” in the bathroom and he accidentally glued his finger to his nose. He had to be rushed to the emergency room, his parents were notified and no one was allowed to use glue for, like, months.]

Meanwhile, complains our panel of experts, their parties were overall too rich-person centric.

“The parties I went to in high school were definitely more ‘gangster-chic’ than actually fancy,” a yuppie friend admits. “Like, we all tried to pretend we were poor. Poor was sort-of in. We were all impressed with the “downtowners.”

Which is exactly how it was in our school! In fact, we know this one girl who wore crazy eyeliner and took TWO SUBWAYS to school. Not surprisingly, all the JAPs were extremely intimidated-slash-awed by her.

“Once all my friends got arrested at urban outfitters for stealing,” admits a former rebel. Scandalous!

Also missing? Humor content. If Mean Girls taught us anything, it’s that bitchy high school girls with no soul are hilarious. They say amazing cutting remarks like “Gretchen Wieners hair is so big because it’s full of secrets.” They don’t just sit there awkwardly, with icy stares and deadpan things like, “Oh, no. Another girl for Chuck to date-rape.”

“I think they need someone on the show to be funny,” agrees a former preppie. “I remember laughing fairly often at my NYC prep school. We did have humor in high school. They don’t.”

And while the show was immensely enjoyed by all, there was one other huge misconception:

“We smoked pot in Riverside Park, not Central.”