Comments on: Gossip Girl, Twitter, and Activists

By: Junweon

Junweon — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:00:37 +0000

OK so here’s my theory: Gossip Girl predicted Twitter. http://is.gd/1c3qW 역시 누군가는 이런 생각을 ㅋㅋ 귀찮아서 다 읽지는 않았음.. 나중에 읽어봐야지

By: Fezlab

Fezlab — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:31:42 +0000

Gossip Girl - the most forward thinking tech show (predicted twitter) - http://tinyurl.com/ceckgh - suckit heros/24

By: DJG33KD0UT

DJG33KD0UT — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:18:48 +0000

Haha, this is simultaneously hilarious and insightful at the same time! I’ve never actually seen Gossip Girl but know the premise due to a girlfriend at the time who insisted I would like the show because it involved a “blog.”

However, this makes me nostalgic. When the movie “Hackers” came out, which made it cool to “mod” your computer and the person who had the most “wicked refresh rate” was obviously king of all hackers. All of my friends, knowing I was a computer dork, would ask me questions along the lines of: “dude, when your programming, do you wear sunglasses?” or “dude, can you ‘HACK THE GIBSON?!?!?!”

Right now for one of my classes I’m writing a 20+ page paper constituting the occupational folklore of “DJing.” It makes me happy that so far Hollywood has yet to try and make a movie about DJing…. I can only imagine the amazing things the protagonist DJ would be able to accomplish, sigh.

By: fluffy

fluffy — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 22:25:15 +0000

@Nickey; I guess more accurately than ‘predicted Twitter’ would be ‘predicted the widespread use of Twitter.’ As evidenced by TXTMOB there have been many ways to do web/sms stuff for over four years now. I think the delay in widespread use though was a combination between the lack of an easy to use system like Twitter, texting becoming inexpensive, an open API, etc.

And while I can imagine an Upper East Sider dropping thousands and thousands of dollars on clothes, jewelry, travel.. I can’t really imagine one spending tens of thousands of dollars on developing a proprietary web to sms gateway. While there have been hacks to accomplish the same end result, convincing an entire high school to do such a thing would be pretty difficult�i.e. it can’t be done within 2 minutes�thus why barely anyone used TXTMOB after the 2004 conventions.

By: Nickey Robo

Nickey Robo — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:51:24 +0000

Perhaps you knew this, but some very quick research proves that Twitter started in April 2007 (a spinoff of another website, Obvious, which began in March 2006). Gossip Girl premiered in September 2007. Also, why is it not believable that a teenager could set up her blog to send out updates? These are supposed to be kids with vast amounts of disposable income.

The show is based on an older book series (I think it started around 2003 or 4), however, so if this technology exists in the books you’re sort of right. And I think you’re pretty spot on about the TXTMOB connection.

By: remy

remy — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 01:41:00 +0000

i saw the twitter/txtmob connection too… fighting the urge to sign up for twitter myself…

i’ve never seen or heard anything about gossip girl though, but then again, i don’t have a tv and only watch Heroes and a few other series on my mbp. go figure.