Gossip Girl's Prophetic Relationship With Technology

Technology was integral to Gossip

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Girl’s premise and plots. Without cameraphone-wielding looky-loos invading the privacy of Serena, Blair, Dan, Chuck, and Nate, there would be no show. So many plotlines hinged on secrets, but it usually only took a couple episodes before Gossip Girl ensured those secrets were revealed, and the writers had to find something new for the characters to hide.

The show’s creators treated technology with the detailed attention befitting its central role, to the point that “we would have companies like Verizon come in and show us prototypes of new models coming up in the future,” Joshua Safran, the show’s executive producer, told Vulture. “We would come up with plotlines based on what we knew would be tech coming out in the future.” Nothing but the newest and shiniest for Manhattan’s elite.

One interesting thing about the Gossip Girl era was the sheer variety of phones available. Before we all coalesced around a touch-screen rectangle as the best possible mobile-phone design, there were BlackBerries with their full keyboards; the Motorola Razr, a super-skinny flip phone; the LG Chocolate, which came in fun colors and slid open to reveal its number pad. All of these appear in the show’s first season, a reflection of the technological diversity of the time.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/10/three-words-eight-letters/542172/