20 Things You Didn't Know About Gossip Girl

xoxo.

1. The Gossip Girl book series was originally going to be adapted into a movie starring Lindsay Lohan, but it never materialized, which is when Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwartz took over the project and developed it for television. Schwartz, who had just come off of The OC, was skeptical about making another teen drama, but he was attracted to telling the stories of Upper East Side teens, who he deemed were "worldlier" than those in Orange County.
2. Blake Lively and Penn Badgley were home schooled together as children. Their on-screen romance as Serena and Dan led to an a real-life relationship, which ended while their characters were still involved. #awkward
3. Leighton Meester, a natural blonde, was not allowed to audition for Blair until she dyed her hair brown.
4. Ed Westwick originally read for the role of Nate Archibald, but was flawlessly cast as Chuck Bass instead. Chace Crawford was then cast as Nate. The CW was against hiring Ed at all, insisting that he looked more like a serial killer than a romantic lead.
5. Kristen Bell didn't audition to voice Gossip Girl. Instead, she simply called the producers and told them she wanted the part. And nobody says no to Veronica Mars.
6. Penn openly admits to having originally turned down the role of Dan Humphrey before eventually accepting it. He also didn't like to memorize his lines, which must have made him a joy to work with.
7. Despite being one of the CW's most successful shows ever, Gossip Girl initially pulled in disappointing numbers. However, it was the first show to point out the changing landscape of television, as it almost doubled its ratings with DVR viewings and it routinely topped the iTunes episode charts.
8. The show filmed in Paris on several occasions. The CW initially warned against this, as the show wasn't popular in Europe and was in danger of being taken off the airwaves.
9. Blake and Leighton had a notoriously bad relationship, taking their onscreen frenemyship to the real world! Not surprisingly, the reports stem from the series' very obvious shift in focus from Blake's Serena to Leighton's Blair. #ShannenAndJennyProblems
10. The Parent Television Council, which specializes in ruining everyone's fun, often targeted Gossip Girl, especially during its first season. So what did the show do in response? It took quotes from the PTC's criticisms, like "Mind-blowingly inappropriate" and "Every parent's nightmare," and used them in the second season's promotional campaign.
11. It was heavily reported that Taylor Momsen would be given her own spin-off, as her character Jenny Humphrey fronted The It Girl novel series. But really, the exact opposite happened. The CW didn't pick up the spin-off, and Taylor only appeared in a handful of episodes during the show's fourth season before leaving altogether to focus on her music career.
12. The second season, "Valley Girls", which focused on Lily van der Woodsen's teenage exploits in 1980s California, was a backdoor pilot for a potential spin-off that was never picked up. The episode starred Brittany Snow as the teenaged version of the character, and the spin-off would have featured younger characters of characters from The OC, officially linking Schwartz's two shows.
13. Cecily von Ziegesar, the author of the novelist, criticized Vanessa as "the one character [the show] ruined." While the novel depicts her as bald and wearing all black, the show portrayed her as an annoying, self-righteous hipster.
14. Connor Paolo, who played Eric van der Woodsen, repeatedly rejected producers' offers to become a series regular for personal reasons. He appeared as a recurring guest star for the first four seasons before leaving the show to star in Revenge.
15. Mischa Barton was originally offered the role of Georgina, whose last name was changed to Sparks from Spark in the novels. Michelle Trachtenberg was cast in the role and would become a critics' favorite. Aside from the main cast, she is the only character to appear in all the season finales.
16. January 26, 2012 in Gossip Girl Day in New York. No, this is not a joke. Mayor Bloomberg visited the set and proclaimed the date as such, commending the cast and crew for glamorizing showcasing the city so well.
17. Kaycee DeFer originally auditioned for Raina Thorpe before she was cast as the UES's resident cunt, Ivy Dickens.
18. William Balding, who played William van der Woodsen, avoided meeting Blake in person until they filmed their first scene, so that they could better depict their characters' estranged father-daughter relationship.
19. In the books, Eric is Serena's older womanizing brother who rarely appears. In the show, he's introduced as Serena's younger suicidal brother. Toward the end of the first season, Georgina accidentally outs him as being gay.
20. The writers never planned to reveal Gossip Girl's identity, which may be why the series finale's revelation of Dan as the anonymous blogger is completely implausible. (Look it up on Tumblr. Hardcore fans have a million and one reasons why it's just not possible.) In fact, when pilot test audiences suspected that Dan was Gossip Girl, the episode was re-edited, not because producers wanted to protect the secret, but because they never intended for Dan to be GG in the first place! Penn himself was not informed about his character's alter ego until the night before he film the scene. (Side note: Georgina and Serena each have their turn as Gossip Girl during the fifth season.)

Why Heidi Montag's Album Isn't as Bad as You'd Think (And Yes, This Pains Me to Admit)

Ratchet.

Most of you are probably unaware, but in 2010, The Hills star Heidi Montag released an album. And... it wasn't bad. Dare I say, it was almost good. I'll get into that later, but let me preface this reasoning by first explaining that I detest Heidi, as should the rest of the air-breathing population. So naturally, when I heard the reality starlet was headed into the recording studio, I feared the worst.

Nothing Heidi did in the months leading up to her album's release indicated that it would be anything but utter shit. She married ratchet fucktard Spencer Pratt, got 10 plastic surgeries in one day, and released the ear-splitting buzz single "Higher" (only click the link if you have a high tolerance for pain). But perhaps most offensively, she got her hand on a Britney Spears demo, recorded over it, and leaked it to the public in an effort to convince everyone she had collaborated with one of the biggest pop stars on the planet. And on the eve of the album's release, when Heidi revealed that she had personally funded the $2 million project and was confident that she would get all the money back after one week of release, I laughed at her just like everybody else.

And then Superficial, as the album was aptly titled, was released. And I was surprised at how good it was. Don't get me wrong, there is absolutely no talent her. Heidi's vocals are autotuned to hell, and I can still only just tolerate them. The songs are uninspired and reductive (one track, "Blackout", was even written by a 9-year-old Taylor Momsen). But Heidi set out to make a fun dance mix and that's exactly what she did. The album's opening tracks, "Look How I'm Doing" and "Turn Ya Head", could have easily been top 40 hits if they were sung by anybody else. My personal favorite, "I'll Do It", is undeniably fun while  "Love It or Leave It" should have been a Britney record. Other highlights include the dance jam "More is More" and the titular "Superficial".

So remember the whole "don't judge a book by its cover" saying? This definitely applies here. With Superficial, that was only ever digitally released, you do get what you think: a collection of vapid songs that embody everything that's wrong with the pop music industry. But that doesn't mean they aren't fun!

PS If you're just loving these jams, you should also check out "Body Language", which Heidi performed at the Miss Universe pageant to a TV audience of nearly one billion, "Bionic". Neither made the album, but they're some of her best.

When Good Shows Become Steaming Piles of Unwatchable Shit: An Open Letter to Gossip Girl Showrunners

A pretty cast can only do so much when the show starts to suck ass.

Dear Gossip Girl so-called writers,

FUCK YOU.

Granted, I've only been an avid Gossip Girl fan for about two years now, but I have some serious grievances to address. But let us delve into some history first, shall we? I binge-watched the first four seasons in a few short months and fell head-over-heels in love. It had everything I stand for: beautiful and rich teenagers living like mini-adults and constantly getting into fights that usually stem from love triangles or the hunger for power in a rigid high school hierarchy.

Damn it, Vanessa. We all hate you!

For a good chunk of my life, I neglected social plans, academic obligations, and other duties to catch up on all the juicy twists and turns in the lives of the Upper East Side clique. Even though I found some decisions the show's writers made questionable, I stuck with it. I sucked it up when Vanessa Abrams (Jessica Szohr) came out of fucking nowhere, seemingly for the sole purpose of annoying the shit out of everyone. I got over the monotonous drama of Blair and Chuck's (Leighton Meester and Ed Westwick, respectively) relationship, which was more on-and-off than Mariah Carey's weight. I accepted that Serena (Blake Lively) was basically just going to sit around and do nothing for seasons on end, much like the actress who plays her. I DGAFed when Nate's (Chace Crawford) only function became dating women who turn out to be major cunts. I didn't complain when Blair seemed to find a new royal to date every five seconds, nor did I throw a fit when Jenny (Taylor Momsen) started looking like a raccoon prostitute. I resisted copious eye rolling when there was an entire "Let's Kill Serena" conspiracy, headed by Melrose Place leftover Katie Cassidy. I even stifled my vomit when Dan (Penn Badgley) deemed Vanessa a worthy fuck. All of this and other such messes were a-okay for the first four seasons.

Then came the fifth season, which shall know be known as the Unspeakable Aberration. This miscarriage of entertainment saw innumerable story lines that exemplify the writers' fading creativity and general incompetence. Let's start with the fact that every single character decides, not explicitly so, that they were going to stop attending college. Then Nate, who can't be older than 20, takes over a fucking newspaper with no journalistic experience. Meanwhile, Dan was off somewhere becoming a world renowned author, also at the ripe age of 19 or 20. But none of this compares to Blair, who's about to marry a prince and become fucking European royalty. But wait, she still loves Chuck. And also Dan. So, rather than get her shit together, she sluts it up for half a season, becomes a pious Bible thumper for an episode and a half, and then resumes her role as a three-timing skank. It was the first time that I actually preferred Serena over Blair. But don't worry, that went out the window when Serena tricked Dan into cheating on Blair with her and then fell back on her cocaine habit. All the while, a con artist with a serious case of smoker's voice named Ivy Dickens (Kaylee DeFer) wastes our time masquerading as Serena's cousin, Charlie Rhodes. The real Charlotte Rhodes (Ella Rae Peck) shows up later and shit ensues. However, the award for Biggest "What the Ever Loving Fuck" Moment goes to when Chuck's father, Bart, turns up alive three years after the audience saw him die in a hospital.

It's sad when you long for the days
when this bitch was still crawling
around the Upper East Side.

Gossip Girl will begin its shortened sixth and final season next Monday with only a fraction of its once impressive audience. (Well, impressive for CW standards.) Many of my fellow GG fans jumped ship during Blair's aforementioned religious awakening. I stayed with the show, mostly due to my compulsive inability to abandon a series no matter how rank it gets. But let me tell you, I don't know if even I'll make it through the final ten episodes. What do we have in store for us? Dan, who began the fifth season with the publication of his scandalous book, will begin the sixth season with the publication of another scandalous book. Cool. I'm loving the creativity, versatility, and character arc development behind that decision. Meanwhile, Blair and Chuck will team up to take down Bart. Shouldn't be hard, since he's supposed to be dead and all. Serena will be in a coked-up state of irresponsibility and self-absorption, which is a refreshing departure from her usual sober state of irresponsibility and self-absorption. I'm not really sure what Nate will be up to, because I barely remember anything he's done since the first season.

So, in conclusion, Gossip Girl is just not a thing anymore. Cheers to the wonderful showrunners for mishandling a once-marvelous series, murdering its allure, beating it afterwards, burying it far below ground, and then digging up its corpse and letting it decompose in plain sight.

XOXO,
A so-called fan