“Gossip Girl” Is Secretly A Total Failure

Gossip Girl, one of the hottest and most controversial shows on TV!

This show has scandalized everyone with its ever-twisting plotlines, its admirable collection of young tail, and its off-set “showmances.”

And those names!! Those mellifluous names like “Badgley,” and “Momsen.”

The New York Times noticed, archly:

In any case, the normally tranquil block — Carnegie Hill has many needlepoint shops, boutiques with children’s clothing from France and, of course, private schools — contained a small mob scene of 11- to 15-year-old girls, particularly after 3 p.m. each day, when classes had let out. On Tuesday, they came in groups of four and five, in pairs and alone, and massed on Park Avenue and in front of the church entrance on 93rd Street, waiting to glimpse the show’s principals.

At first blush, it could be difficult to figure out who was in the show and who was merely watching the filming. Where did real life end and fiction begin?

“I totally want to see Chuck,” said 14-year-old Catherine, who appeared to be the ringleader of a group of Sacred Heart eighth graders and who was wary of sharing her full name. She meant Chuck Bass, the young roué played by Ed Westwick.

“Blake Lively is my idol,” she said, referring to the actress who plays Serena van der Woodsen. “But if Chuck walked out here, I think I’d jump him.”

Katherine Withseidelin and Hollis Alpert, who are in the eighth grade at Chapin, were there early on Tuesday afternoon. “We saw Chuck yesterday,” Miss Withseidelin said.

“Yeah, that was a big deal,” Miss Alpert said. “He sort of was just, like, walking back to his trailer. So we got pictures. This is our third time here.”

US Weekly squealed:

Apparently Ed Westwick and Jessica Szohr are mixing business with pleasure.

W Magazine is reporting that the Gossip Girl co-stars were spotted kissing “definitely on the lips” in a Dallas airport on Sunday.

“Not a French kiss, but a smooch definitely,” the magazine reports. “They were being very flirty when people were not paying attention.”

The New York Post adds that “they were trying to be discreet by stealing kisses near the gate.”

The two rode coach on their way back to New York City, the Post reports, and “were kissing in the aisles, but once they sat, she read her script and he drank a Heineken.”

A rep for the stars would not comment.

Good golly!! Noticed in publications high and low.

The Gossip Girl Facebook group has 762,618 members! (For reference, CBS timeslot rival The Big Bang Theory’s group has 180,392.)

Confession time. We’ve seen this show, and found it to be as delightfully stupid as many of its primetime teen soap opera predecessors. It’s not a good show, per se, but it achieves what it sets out to do.

And some of them ladies are fine…

(We don’t love that look on ol’ Meester, but she was born in prison, which in all honesty is awesome.)

Google Trends reveals that GG receives press and web coverage far outstripping any of its timeslot rivals:

There’s only one problem with this picture.

NOBODY WATCHES GOSSIP GIRL.

Brendon from WWTDD noticed:

The media goes all crazy over Gossip Girl, and no one really has any idea why, because no one watches that boring shit. Even in the coveted 18-34 demo, where one would assume it would do well, it was behind “Cuidado con el Angel”, and an hour later almost twice as many people watched “Feugo en la Sangre”. I don’t know what the hell that is, but if it’s like all the other Mexican TV I’ve accidentally watched, it’s pure fucking madness, a talk show with a midget in a diaper chasing money and a super hot hooker with big tits and a some really fat twins on a tiny motorcycle, and then a chupacabra report, brought to you by Nestles Abuelita. Way to go Gossip Girl.

There’s no shame in losing to 24, but to get pasted by every terrible show on network television that entire night?

That’s just weak.

You wouldn’t know how sucky this show’s ratings are from the cavalcade of coverage it has received.

Hmm, maybe this has to do with shooting your show in New York, media capital of Earth, and pitching your themes directly to the snooty, sleaze-centric audience of the media elite!

Despite all the press coverage, this show has a problem. It really doesn’t have that many fans.

Here’s a list of the ratings for every episode. Not one showing of this series has exceeded a 2.0 rating in the 18-49 demographic.

So, what stunt can executive producer Josh Schwartz pull to turn this baby around?

Eh, just his same old tricks from his “O.C.” days. Cheesy “hip” music and showmances.

We noticed this interesting note on a Gawker roundup of blind items:

“The old movie studio system used to match up gay stars with beards to improve their marketability. Times haven’t changed much. Two young Hollywood couples are now being employed in such a ruse. The men in each couple are gay, and the girls are the beards. All of them are aware of their roles. There’s an interesting twist coming up, though. Now that the novelty of each couple has worn off, each couple will be breaking up and swapping partners with the other to stir up controversy and to get them back on the magazine covers.”

So when Penn Badgley and Ed Westwick swap Blake Lively for Jessica Szohr, you can say you heard it here first.

Meanwhile, this show will be off the air in no time, because as scandalous and delightful as it might be, nobody is watching it.