Thursday, February 26, 2015

Gossip Girl

One show I have recently begun binge watching on Netflix is Gossip Girl. The story focuses on a group of privileged teens, Blair Waldorf, Serena van der Woodsen, Nate Archibald, Chuck Bass and Dan Humphrey, living on the Upper Eastside of New York City. The show is narrated by Gossip Girl, a ruthless and mysterious blogger who reveals the teen's deepest secrets. The television series is based on the book series of the same name written by Cecily von Ziegesar.


The series began with the return of Upper East Side "It Girl" Serena van der Woodsen, after a long, mysterious stay at a boarding school in Cornwall, Connecticut. It is revealed that she has had a scandalous past that continues to haunt her throughout the show and she is notorious for her many on-again, off-again relationships with countless male characters as well as for her rebellious drive-outs. Blair Waldorf, who is described as the queen at the center of the chess game, is a longtime friend and occasional rival of Serena's, and the queen bee of Constance Billard School's social scene. The story also follows Chuck Bass, who serves as the show's antihero, being a womanizer and party lover with a troubled life and past that provide a hidden vulnerable side, and “Golden Boy" Nate Archibald, always being fought over by the prominent female characters, and deals with a lot of issues that compromise his "perfect" life. Gossip Girl ran for 6 seasons before they producers decided to end the show with the reveal of who Gossip Girl really was.


One of the things I found most interesting about the show was their advertising methods. The show was notorious for it's mixed reviews, but after receiving horrible criticism from a couple different sources for it's risqué content, they decided to take those reviews and use them as part of an advertising campaign. I found this entirely innovative and to be an interesting twist on typical advertising methods.


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