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I’d recommend you not watch NYC Prep too soon after eating. The real-life Gossip Girl, which follows a group of wealthy NYC high-school kids around, is even harder to stomach than the real thing. At least on Gossip Girl the characters are properly scripted to be witty and conniving and snobbish — on NYC Prep these kids come off as bad rip-offs of the GG crew.
There’s Camille, the abrasive over-achiever who’s never afraid to speak her mind. There’s Jessie, the fashion-conscious uber-bitch who’s hugely possessive of her ex-boyfriend/current best friend, whom she claims she only cares about as a friend. There’s Kelli, the 16-year-old whose parents live in the Hamptons while renting her an Upper East Side apartment so she can pursue her music career. And there’s Taylor, a lowly public school kid who’s desperately trying to achieve “social status” among the prep-school crowd. And then you have the boys — Sebastien, a less attractive, less compelling, obvious imitation of Chuck Bass, and PC, who’s so consumed with the wealth and power he thinks he’s privy to that he doesn’t understand how none of it will actually help him to be happy in life. As a group, they’re extremely hard to watch.
But it got me thinking — what if someone had followed me and my friends around in high school? What if someone had followed any of us around in high school? What these kids are struggling with — relationship jealousy, social status, college applications — is the exact same shit all of us were dealing with at that age. They’re just doing it on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I’m sure if you’d sat me down to talk about my life when I was 18, I would have come off exactly as obnoxious and clueless.
I guess this is what I’m saying: I don’t think anyone should be able to star in a reality television show until they’re at least 25. I mean that jokingly, of course, but some of these kids are underage, and so you know they got their parents’ permission to participate. I have to wonder what impact it will have on their lives — to have a videotaped, nationally broadcast record of what douches they were in their teenage years. It feels very exploitative by Bravo, a network I’ve usually come to rely on to do television shows with a little more substance and a cast that’s old enough to vote.
So you can witness the ridiculousness we’re dealing with here, there’s a ten-minute clip of the show above. You can find the rest on YouTube if you really want to, but I doubt that you will.
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Seen the gay (closeted) kid throw a bottle at the chick when he was talking to her? Saw it on the Soup, it was hilarious.
Yup. Totally closeted. And I love how he’s all like “I’m done with dating!” Um, no. You’re not done with dating. You’re just done with dating women.
Yeah, poor guy. A part of me feels for him because I went through that phase too. Not the whole dating women thing, but the “I am not dating anyone!” phase. If I were a nicer person I’d slap some sense into him.
Aaah how obnoxious! It’s ridiculous the way they think they’re so different from everyone else their age, like how the one girl was like, ‘In this kind of environment, you kind of have to grow up by 16.’ Like, WTF? I’m 16, and we’re all having to grow up around that age, girly! I guess I could understand if she had said it in a different way or had meant it in a different sense, like if she was saying the result of their living in such an upper-class environment is that they have had to make some quick realizations about upper-class society or culture or something like that, but to make the statement that having to grow up quickly is having to grow up by 16 is a totally naive and sheltered thing to say. What about kids living in poverty? Or the kids that are having to go through all of the political chaos going on in Iraq? Maybe I took her comment a little too far, but it shocked me for a second, so I had to vent. ( :
Uh nobody HAS to grow up by 16, unless you’re like an orphan or around war and death all the time.. I wasn’t grown up by then, I’m 18 and I’m still not grown up. There’s so much more to life than high school and college.
It does bring up the interesting question of when are we grown up? Legally we’re adults at 18 when it’s obvious that most of us are not at all equipped to actually be adults and pay bills and act responsible. However, the drinking age is 21, the age to rent a car is 25, but you can be on your parents’ insurance until 24, and at 26 you’re considered non-traditional when pursuing an undergraduate degree.
If being grown up is simply drug, alcohol, and sexual experimentation with some crime thrown in for good measure then yeah, most 16 year olds are grown up. If it means holding down a job, saving for the future, doing well in school, acting respectful, and thinking beyond prom, then I don’t think many qualify.
Check out MTV’s 16 and Pregnant. That show, so far, has shown the spectrum of young women who choose to become teen mothers. And what’s refreshing is that they show a wide range of young men who are involved with the young women.
These kids think they’re grown up when they live on trust funds until they’re 40?
If they really wanted to make an interesting show they should have put these pretentious brats up in roach infested house in the hood for a month and made them work at McDonald’s. See how the other half lives *evil laugh*
I think it has more to do with the fact that 16 year olds THINK they’re grown up. I know I did… but it’s because your life is such a tiny bubble at that point in time. It’s hard to think about anything except yourself. I completely agree with everything you’ve said. I think people could be grown up by 18 but society doesn’t want them to be, it looks down on kids who enter the work force at 18 instead of going to college and continuously makes laws that prevent people from growing up. In NJ (where I live) an 18 year old adult can’t even buy cigarettes… it think it’s a bit over the top.
Rich kids tend to be obnoxious.
ug the blonde girls voice is SOOO annoying!
I stumbled across this and watched it last week, mostly with my mouth agape in horror. What struck me most is how these kids have opened themselves up to the commentary of the entire world — not just in the future but in some of their most vulnerable years. (And I don’t care how hard they try to come off in the show — they’re teenagers.)
That thought was particularly appalling with the kid who threw the bottle — I have to wonder how it will affect him to have the whole viewership of this show referring to him as the closeted kid (even though this was also my instinct when watching it). Maybe it will be a positive thing for him, but right now I have to doubt it.
I attempted tp hold back the vomit and failed.
the kid who was making fun of the smile charity should be slapped. hard. in fact, slap them all.
Is that legal to let your 16 year old daughter live alone? I guess the 18 year old is the guardian but oh my God, what bad parenting. But it’s awesome that she’s so independent cuz she lives on her own. If my daddy would pay all my bills and give me money (and likely a maid), I’d be independent too and it would be great.
Really though, I can’t wait til she hits it big. Did you hear that singing voice? Wow, such emotion, you never ever hear girls sing like that.
The voice of Jennie makes me wants to hurl the speakers through the monitor.
why do they all look like they’re inbred? the only attractive one is the public school girl.
I have come to the conclusion that upper-class *are* inbreds because they only marry with other upper-class people so there are just so many available combinations in the Upper East Side isn’t it? It is like many members of European royalty. Inbreeding, I’m telling ya. Check Princess Elena of Spain, that girl is obviously not the sharpest tool in the royalty box.
actually i know one of the girls on the show and she is not wealthy and sometimes they get scripts
danielle is the girl you know a different person fromtaylor? cause everyone knows that she doent have any money lol. but if is someone other than taylor than im dying to know (loves gossip). but i have to disagree with you guys on one thing. i honestly kinda agree with pc when he made that comment about the operation smile thing. i mean not to be rude or anything, but i havta agree that there are alot more tradgedies going on in the world like rebuilding new orleans, poor kids in africa china the middle east etc that need funding as well. idk just my opinion. oh and i honestly dont see where everyone thinks he’s gay. just dont see it lol
I actually go to school on the upper east side of manhattan and I am very apalled at this show and the generalizations they make about this part of the city. My friends and I do near to none of the things we do unless you count meeting in central park or going to coffee. It’s just ridiculous.
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