Spotted on 'Gossip Girl': 'There's this thing called MySpace'

The cast of 'Gossip Girl'

(Credit: The CW)

I'll admit it: I watched Wednesday night's series premiere of Gossip Girl, the new teen drama on the CW network that details the slightly-too-scandalous lives of privileged young New Yorkers--as chronicled by an anonymous blogger. One of the prominent characters in the first scene is a sleek LG Chocolate mobile phone. The show is packed with MacBooks, BlackBerrys, Sidekicks, and just about any other gadget that the average American high schooler could possibly want.

It is, indeed, tech-savvy. But let's face it--they aren't exactly dealing with the Gizmodo-guzzling demographic. I was betting that the word "blog" wouldn't even appear in the series premiere, despite the overall premise of the show.

Thankfully, I didn't bet any cash on it. "Blog" was said twice--albeit in the same conversation between socially awkward introvert Dan (played by Penn Badgley) and his father Rufus (played by Matthew Settle), a suspiciously good-looking ex-rock star. The two were stapling posters for Rufus' band's concert on lampposts around the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg, which is apparently Gossip Girl's equivalent of "the 'hood." (If you'd like a reality check, head over to Craiglist and do a search for Williamsburg apartments. Yeah, not cheap.)

The approximately 16-year-old Dan seemed to think it was all kind of tedious. "You know, Dad, there's this thing called MySpace where you post all this information online," he said. "Save some trees. Have a blog." See? He said blog.

His father scoffed: "If musicians got off their blogs and picked up their guitars, the music business would be in better shape." Hmm, so according to that logic we can blame blogging indie rockers for that "This Is Why I'm Hot" song? I'll take it.

Dan's response was predictable: "Spoken like a true relic." Funny, since the actor playing his dad doesn't look a day over 35.

So maybe I lost my personal Gossip Girl bet, but I'm still holding out for the episode in which the anonymous hellraiser of a narrator is revealed to be a Boston-based Forbes magazine editor.

[DraconumPB]

Elton John

"If musicians got off their blogs and picked up their guitars, the music business would be in better shape." This is almost exactly what Elton John recently said about the internet (I also believe he wanted to shut the thing down for 5 years to see what wonderful magic would result, you know, and maybe the world would just become a better place, people would make better music or something. Darn internets, ruining the world and all that.)