History Literature / GossipGirl

** Jenny is supposed to have a real talent for designing but most of her pieces have been pretty blah.

** Vanessa got into Tisch because she's such a great writer but we've never seen any proof of that. She's also supposed to be a talented documentary film maker but she seems to mostly just walk around randomly with a camera.

* EvilMatriarch: Serena's grandmother, who tricks her into appearing at her Debutante Ball and having paid off Dan's father to stay away from Serena's mother.
** As of "The Townie," we now know that Lily is even worse than her mother, and always has been.

* BlackBestFriend: Vanessa Abrams (who portrayed by [[ButNotTooBlack light-skinned]], blue-eyed actress Jessica Szohr who is a quadroon) is to Dan Humphrey.

* CastFullOfRichPeople: The show focuses on wealthy Manhattan prep school students-cum-socialites who weave their way through New York's elite. Sure, they go through relationship drama and college problems like most teens, but do so surrounded by extravagance. Dan and Taylor, who are from Brooklyn, are the poor-ish characters in the cast.

The novels and show followed the lives of several characters, all rich kids living in New York City. The primary characters are Blair Waldorf, Nate Archibald, Serena van der Woodsen, Chuck Bass and Dan Humphrey, who (basically all) become involved romantically even though they are part of different crowds. Blair is the {{Determinator}} queen bee of the Upper East Side, while Nate is (in the novels at least) the stoned {{Prince Charming}}. Chuck Bass is the Casanova bad boy, Nate's bff who finds himself [[LadykillerInLove falling in love with his best friend's girl]]. Serena is a former bad girl, and Blair's mortal enemy/bff while Dan is struggling to merely get accepted into a prestigious college, owing to the fact that his family doesn't have much money. A number of old friends, new friends and love shapes make things even more complicated, but the biggest wild card is Gossip Girl, a mysterious blogger who seems to be following them around and recording their movements and actions. Naturally, the characters don't like this at all, but Gossip Girl's identity remains unknown despite all attempts to discover it.

* ArtisticLicenseUniversityAdmissions: Compounding the show's depictions of Yale's admissions process in the second season's "New Haven Can Wait" is its completely inaccurate depiction of Skull and Bones. In real life the organization, like Yale's other secret societies, is exclusively composed of seniors, and rather than mugging and abducting prospective members when they visit campus as high school seniors they go to prospective members late in their junior year, wearing skull-faced makeup and black robes, to "tap" them with "Accept or reject?", which must be answered on the sot.

A PrimeTimeSoap starring a bunch of rich kids (and a few middle class kids -- [[FriendsRentControl sort of]]) from the Upper East Side of [[BigApplesauce New York]]. Started off as a series of young adult novels by Cecily von Ziegesar, then made into a television show for Creator/TheCW by Josh Schwartz, the creator of ''Series/TheOC'' and ''Series/{{Chuck}}''. There also exists a {{manhwa}} series by Hye-Kyung Baek as well as an OtomeGame by Creator/VoltageInc.

** Lampshaded by Rufus. "I knew I let you kids watch ''Film/{{The Parent Trap|1998}} too many times..."

** Lampshaded by Rufus. "I knew I let you kids watch ''Film/TheParentTrap too many times..."

** Creator/KristenBell and Rachel Bilson as themselves in "[[SeriesFinale New York, I Love You XOXO]]."

** Season 2: [[spoiler: Blair's past machinations come to bite her in the butt and she gets her early acceptance to Yale rescinded.]] 2 episodes before this however, Blair gets detention for trying to humiliate a new teacher for giving her a B instead of an A and retaliates by spreading a rumor that the teacher is sleeping with Dan Humphrey. This costs the teacher her job [[spoiler: at first]], which makes it difficult to feel bad for Blair's shattered dream.

** Season 2: Blair gets detention for trying to humiliate a new teacher for giving her a B instead of an A (and thus, making her application to Yale no longer perfect). She retaliates by spreading a rumor that the teacher is sleeping with Dan Humphrey and doubles down on it when she gets threatened with expulsion. This costs the teacher her job and Blair [[spoiler: gets her acceptance to Yale rescinded. Seeing as she ruined the career of a teacher, while she later ends up going to NYU, again hard to feel much sympathy for her crushed dream.]]

* AssholeVictim: Almost the entirety of the main cast qualifies each time Gossip Girl targets them, but special shout out goes to Season 1 Blair who, after spending an entire season slut-shaming Serena whenever she gets annoyed by her (even after she has supposedly forgiven her), gets slut shamed by the entire school when its made clear she slept with both Nate and Chuck. The hypocritical nature of Blair's previous (and future) actions/comments regarding others makes it hard to have much sympathy for her plight.

* ParentTrapPlot: The van der Humphrey children try this when it looks like Rufus and Lily are going to call off their engagement in "Rufus Getting Married." The episode title gives away that it works.
** Lampshaded by Rufus. "I knew I let you kids watch Parent Trap too many times..."
** Serena seems to be trying this again with her mom and dad in late season 3.

* ForeignRemake: In China, Mexico, and Thailand.

* ThePowerOfLove: Loving Blair is the main reason why Chuck turns from attempted rapist to good guy, and then turned into the worst, again.

* BettyandVeronica: Chuck regularly plays the bad boy to the rest of Blair's love interests. Serena and Vanessa also play this role to Dan in the earlier seasons.

* InterclassFriendship: While best friends with fellow upper-class Chuck Bass, upper-class Nate Archibald is also good friends with middle-class Dan Humphrey.
** Dan Humphrey's sister, Jenny Humphrey, is also good friends with the wealthy Eric van der Woodsen, Serena's brother.

** Chanel (its store also shown), Tiffany and Tally Weijl shopping bags are spotted in one of the episodes where Blair and Serena are in Paris.