Gossip Girl premiered in 2007, right when the “Great Recession” was kicking off, the housing bubble was collapsing and the stock market began its descent. The recession that would burst the millennial bubble of self-obsession and general entitlement was suddenly juxtaposed against this show that depicted “upper East siders” of Manhattan, born into privilege and concerned with little more than making Brooklynites feel lower class and ruining one another’s reputations for fun.

At first it was a fun escape from reality. Look at this sexy cast – beautiful Serena, “indie” Dan, bitchy but cute Blaire, date-rapey but metrosexual Chuck, way too pretty Nate, and a lack of diversity other than Blaire’s peons who are to receive little respect throughout the show. It was like a soap opera with a cool semi-alternative soundtrack and weird, expensive outfits we missed seeing Carrie Bradshaw wearing. Yes it had a digital element that was supposed to be the hook but it was so off-base with the Live Journals of our own youths that we just laughed it off.

But as the recession really started to seep in, we changed and the show didn’t. I graduated from college in 2010, expecting no job, expecting no money, no 401k, no stability after seeing my friends who had graduated the year before return to the barista jobs of their high school careers, this time with a heavy amount of wine to console them. Their college degrees were channeled into blogs that captured their newly structured thoughts while they waited out rough times until they could get a job that used them. And on Gossip Girl, Vanessa, the “poor” and thus disgusting (but actually intensely beautiful) woman became the villain until she just faded away.

The recession was a recalibration for all of us. In high school, the chief status symbol was a coach or Louis Vuitton purse, because showing you could afford designer labels mattered. As everyone started to confront a future without the McMansion and brand new cars of their parents’ generation, we started asking “why?” We do we care about designer bags? They started to seem tacky. Slowly, the symbol of the recession became the yoga mat. Those with money didn’t want to buy useless things, but a new type of luxury that was much more defendable – “self-actualization.” I work in marketing, where it’s common knowledge that millennials want eco-friendly, cause-related products, because we value that self-actualization. We feel incomplete, lied to about the future, and we want to feel whole again. We also realize that things can collapse, and we’re entitled to nothing.

While this recalibration continued on, the characters on Gossip Girl continued to vilify everyone outside of their social circle, and eventually, each other. Dan, the only character who was supposed to see outside of it all, fell into their trap, seduced. The last episode I watched involved family members who hated one another for reasons I hadn’t followed trying to outbid one another – into the millions – on a fake painting. What was I supposed to relate to in this? Can anyone relate anymore?

I just watched the final episode – including the mini-documentary beforehand, and realized that the creators truly believed they were creating the Liz Taylor-esque glamor icons of our times in these characters. But our generation doesn’t want this type of glamor anymore. Women have come to mean more than beautiful symbols in a rotating set of iconic dresses, diamonds have come to mean a moral debate about sustainability and labor, and romance has become something more about love and inclusivity (yay gay marriage) than tumultuous dramatic people who hurt one another.

So all I can say is, Gossip Girl, you started out being out of touch and then flushed yourself down the toilet by clinging to old, white, WASPY ideas of what life should be like. It was fun for awhile, but you did yourself in.

–Becky Lang