Don't be ashamed

New episodes of Gossip Girl return tonight; New York Magazine offers a lengthy ode to the show, which is apparently still on thanks to its success on new media platforms and our neverending desire for shows about sexy young people running around NYC.

New episodes routinely arrived at the No. 1 most-downloaded spot on iTunes, and then there were the hundreds of thousands who were downloading free week-old episodes on the CW’s site. Even executives at Nielsen threw up their hands and admitted that Gossip Girl appeared to be speaking to an audience so young and tech-savvy they hadn’t really figured it out just yet.



This isn’t the first show to find Internet success—Lost and The Office are big download hits, too. But this is the first show that seems to have succeeded primarily on the Internet. There’s something about the combination of the show’s premise, the viewers’ age, and the available technology that has given Gossip Girl a life of its own online. Not only do fans watch the show on their computers, but they post sightings of the actors on gossip blogs and exchange rumors (about both the show and its stars) on fan sites. You can even play Gossip Girl’s Upper East Side on Second Life. It’s not appointment television; it’s a 24-hour conversation. We are all Gossip Girl! And the whole experience can happen sans television