XOXO, Gossip Girl - Why St Andrews is the Scottish Upper East Side

For those who aren’t familiar with Gossip Girl, let me enlighten you: 121 episodes of a skilfully crafted, dramatic masterclass. The addictive show follows teenage billionaires Chuck, Nate, Blair and Serena as they navigate the skyline of New York’s 2007-2012 Upper East Side. Without giving away too much for those who have somehow survived (surely with difficulty) without seeing Blake Lively repeatedly muttering 'I have to go' upon their screen, Gossip Girl beholds affairs, Ponzi schemes, murder, manipulation, fraud, oh and a terribly incestual friendship group.  

With all this unfolding in the show, a certain somebody (can’t possibly say who) saw an opportunity to establish the infamous, and eponymously titled website ‘Gossip Girl’. The trajectory of the show relies upon characters sending in anonymous tips to the website, and ‘Gossip Girl’, in turn, exposing people’s deepest and darkest secrets. Now don’t worry, I’m not about to enlist a Gossip Girl alter ego, and start publicly outing you all a) because that just isn’t nice and b) because a culture of Gossip Girl already exists in St Andrews. Without realising it, our beloved Scottish town is day by day turning into a microcosm of Manhattan’s elite world; complete with intrigue, privilege, and secrets that spread like wildfire.  

Credit: Buzzfeed

Do we love or hate the fact that you can’t walk 30 seconds without seeing someone you know? And that by some twisted ‘Murphy’s Law’ curse which St Andrews seems to have going, it’s always the one person you’re desperately trying to avoid. This, combined with the low student population (only 10,234 students, compared to the nearby Edinburgh’s 49,740 students), certainly doesn’t help with how fast secrets spread. 10,000 of us inhabiting - lets be real - only 3 streets, 1 club, and 1 library. No wonder it feels like you know everybody, or that everybody knows you. Quite honestly, it is a double-edged sword, and we must consider how this high student population density has contributed towards the gossip-style culture which is enveloping us all. 

For example, just think about how many secrets you know about someone in St Andrews, which you really ought not to, because you heard it through a friend of a friend, or a neighbour, or a person you once had an Economics tutorial with back in first year. The ‘six degrees of separation’ theory really does ring true in our tiny little town. With proximity brings intense rivalry, and based upon the rate in which secrets spread, it feels like we do already have a ‘Gossip Girl’ lurking in St Andrews. You feel watched? That’s because there are eyes everywhere. Special mention to the people living on Market Street who sit, like an omniscient presence, with their heads out the sash windows, just silently watching. It makes me wonder how (catastrophically) successful a ‘Gossip Girl’ website would be here in St Andrews.  

The guaranteed sensation of a ‘Gossip Girl’ website is the most terrible and terrifying part. A significant number of us would jump at the opportunity to anonymously, and therefore seemingly inconsequentially, out the secrets of the girl they’ve disliked for years, or the boy who runs rampant in 601. Gossip culture provides a short-term satisfaction in that it makes you feeling involved, relevant, and in the loop. In this sense, the responsibility falls on us: we are the consumers who have quantified self-worth based on who you know, or more accurately, what you know about them. We are the ones feeding into this he said/ she said, who’s in/ who’s out culture.  

Don’t believe me? Just take one look at the anonymous social media sites that already exist in St Andrews; St Crushdrews, Overheardrews, St Sleeping and St Slander, to name a few. These platforms are extremely gossipy, in the sense that they post things which people haven’t always given explicit permission for. Just look at the engagement they receive- thousands of followers, with people daily sending in their pictures of people sleeping, or of the diabolical things they overheard people saying in the library (Verbatim: “Can you put the subtitles on? Why? Because I’m dyslexic”). And you’re telling me students in St Andrews wouldn’t eat up a ‘Gossip Girl’ forum? 

Credit: University website

This, by no means, is me encouraging it. However, you can’t ignore the similarities between St Andrews and the elitist Upper-East Side which is portrayed throughout the show. Visually, there is little similarity between the vast New-York city skyline, compared to our cobbled and quirky streets but audibly, yes. The American accents boom around every corner (dedicated to my extremely loud yet endearing best friend from New Jersey). American and other international students bring with them immense wealth, and as such St Andrews has gradually become like a pot of gold nestled into the Fife coastline. Just as the Upper East Side is portrayed as New York’s emblem of wealth—and Brooklyn as its more diverse counterpart—the same dynamic quietly echoes in St Andrews. As a community, we have regretfully managed to proclaim certain areas of town as the ‘Badlands’ (Brooklyn’s equivalent).  

However, this mindset requires a certain degree of ingrained snobbery within us. Which leads us onto the question, where exactly does this Blair Waldorf-esque social conditioning stem from? Well, first let's take a look at our social scene: fashion shows, garden parties, champagne brunches, secret societies, and balls all fill up the calendar. As much as I adore these events, it's not difficult to see the resemblance to the lives of those in Gossip Girl, is it? This grandeur that we’re 24/7 exposed to, helps explain why- don’t lie- many of us have made condescending and classist comments about the ‘Badlands’, or Madras compared to St Leonards, Aldi compared to M&S. With regards to this, I encourage us all to try and be a bit more thoughtful, and deconstruct the habit of these classist comments—to stop St Andrews from sliding even further into a cliquey, golf-filled version of the Upper East Side.  

To conclude, the only plausible reason I believe that St Andrews wouldn’t absolutely devour a Gossip Girl forum is only because Eduroam would probably kick them off before they had a chance to post their secrets. However, that’s not to say all hope is lost. We just need to turn the double-edged sword on its other side and stop valuing what you know about people as social currency and instead look outside the bubble. That’s a warning. XOXO, Gossip Girl.