XOXO, Conspicuous Consumption: I wrote about how the financial crisis killed 'Gossip Girl' for The Atlantic
Gossip Girl premiered on September 19, 2007, only a few weeks before the stock market hit an all-time high. America was already feeling the effects of the subprime crisis, but the economic meltdown wouldn’t penetrate the popular consciousness until a year later. When banks began to fail and the market plummeted in October 2008, a few episodes into Gossip Girl’s second season, public opinion turned swiftly and dramatically against the very rich. The New York story pointed out that the show’s appeal was in how it “mocks our superficial fantasies while satisfying them, allowing us to partake in the over-the-top pleasures of the irresponsible superrich without anxiety or guilt or moralizing.” But in the throes of the most catastrophic recession in several generations, that kind of magical, aspirational thinking became more difficult with each passing week.
