15 Awful Life Lessons From 'Gossip Girl'

Of all the teen dramas that are more soap opera than anything else, Gossip Girl is one of the most popular. It started airing on The CW back in September of 2007 and the final episode was in December of 2012. The super juicy and stylish show featured lots of expensive clothing, storylines that made you unable to look away, and tons of intrigue (like who was Gossip Girl, for one thing). You really love the show and all your best friends do, too. It's impossible not to since it's just a really fun thing to watch. But when you have some time to think about it, you have to admit that this show isn't really the most positive thing ever… especially in terms of what messages it's promoting. Sorry but no matter how much you adore this drama, you just have to admit that this is totally and completely true.

Here are 15 awful life lessons from Gossip Girl.

15 Always Look Perfect

It doesn't take a total genius to realize that this show places a huge value on looking perfect. But not just sometimes. Nope. 100 percent of the time. As in 24/7, as in every time you leave your house, as in always. It's enough to make a girl break into a total cold sweat and wonder if she's ever going to look as good as Blair and Serena do in every single scene. Okay, okay, so it's a TV show and they are just actresses with a hair and makeup team… but still, the show is promoting beauty and that's not always the best message to send. You most likely started watching this series when you were already in college and had already finished with the whole high school thing. Naturally, you had some growing pains as a teenager and had to learn how to value yourself and figure out that whole self-worth and confidence thing… and realizing that it still matters that you look good doesn't really help with that. Nope, not at all.

14 Spend All Your Money On Clothes

It's crazy when you think how expensive the outfits were on this show. It really is. Sure, that might have been the entire point since the characters are supposed to be wealthy and fabulous and fashionable, but it really is an awful life lesson to promote. You shouldn't spend all your money on clothes and how you look, and yet this is exactly what the series seems to be suggesting. When you watch even a single episode, you can't help but hate all your clothes and feel like you need to win the lottery in order to dress yourself for a day at the office or even a casual weekend afternoon. There's just no way that your wardrobe even compares to the stuff that Blair and Serena wear, whether they're wearing some variation of a school uniform (because apparently, you can change your uniform… ) or something that is supposed to be low-key but is still fancy and amazing.

13 Break The Rules

It's no secret that every character on this show really does whatever they want. While that makes for awesome juicy storylines on a television show, it's also a pretty awful life lesson. You can't just do that. Rules exist for a reason, after all. Just look at how Serena and Blair and everyone else doctors their school uniforms. Do these outfits look like any school uniform you've ever seen?! Definitely not. Because these characters are so ridiculously into rule breaking that they will stop at no cost to do that. In the real world, you would get into tons of trouble for not wearing your uniform the way that it was originally intended, and you wouldn't be able to wear tons of makeup and fancy hair and all that jazz to school. You would just get sent home or at least given a strike or warning or something like that. It wouldn't work out too well.

12 Get Revenge At All Costs

It's crazy how evil Blair and Chuck can be. This is exactly why they are a cute couple (in a weird way… ) and why they totally embody #relationshipgoals. But really, should this be something that you're celebrating? Probably not. Blair and Chuck's motto in life is that you should get revenge at all costs, anytime, and whenever you can. It doesn't matter who you hurt along the way, it just matters that you win. They're always scheming and trying to cause someone pain and suffering, and that's really sad. It's not something that anyone should ever attempt in real life and it's a really sad, awful life lesson. Maybe that doesn't matter since hey, it's just a television series. But if you think of how many young girls watch stuff like this and try to model themselves after the characters' behavior, well, yeah, it starts to matter a lot more.

11 Fight With Your BFF

It's not a good idea to fight with your best friend in the entire world. It's just not. You have to either make the super difficult decision to break up and never talk to each other again, or you have to somehow find a way to make the friendship work and stay in each other's lives. There really is no in-between when it comes to best friends. But unfortunately, for a show that is supposedly about female friendships, this series features Serena and Blair fighting a whole lot. After all, the entire first half of the first season is totally devoted to how Serena has returned to NYC after a big scandal and how Blair definitely doesn't want to invite her back into her good graces. It's almost like this is being celebrated because Blair seems pretty happy about it. It's hard to wrap your mind around since you would rather do anything but fight with your best friend.

10 Be Popular

Just look at how much of a focus there is on Jenny trying to be popular. Sure, you could argue that the whole message is that you shouldn't do that since she's not exactly super happy trying to be Blair (or Blair's number two or whatever it is). But really, the fact that this is such a huge part of the series proves that this is a pretty awful life lesson, and it's one that you should never take to heart. You should never, ever think that being popular is worth anything at all. You already know this since you probably tried to be popular back in high school and lost the battle… but came out on the other side and now have the best life ever. That's what most people go through, anyway. But this show really does seem to say that you have to be popular, and that's just crazy, especially since so many young girls are watching and loving it.

9 Take Down Your Peers

The entire point of Gossip Girl is that someone is, well, Gossip Girl. And they're just dying to take down their peers and make them feel horrible about themselves. They share every single piece of gossip and information that is sent their way, and they seem totally and completely thrilled about it. But really… isn't that awful?! It's not the best thing to have on a TV show and it really does send the message that making other people feel bad about themselves is a good thing, which you know is totally not true. The fact that this ended up being Dan is even more ridiculous since no one -- literally no one -- would think that Dan would be okay with taking down his peers. Blair, sure. Serena, maybe. Jenny, probably. But Dan? Nope, this wouldn't seem to make sense with the way that his character had been developed. So really, this life lesson that taking down other people is a good thing is pretty bad.

8 Be Promiscuous

It's not that you have to be a prude, but come on, Gossip Girl. There's a total fine line between being comfortable with your body and your sexuality… and jumping from bed to bed like the characters do here. It's not a great life lesson that you have to be promiscuous in order to be super cool, but that's the lesson that this series is totally promoting. This was such an issue that the series actually got in a ton of trouble from groups like the Parents Television Council, who just didn't think this was all that appropriate. And really, they were kind of right. All the wild things on in this show just seemed a bit much, and it seemed like it was way too much of a focus for show that was supposed to be about friendship and first love and growing up and leaving high school to find out who you are. Sure, getting physical is a part of life, but it's not the entire thing. It's also, of course, totally okay if you don't want to do it in high school and you're just not ready, and this show doesn't seem to believe that at all.

7 Be Super Spoiled

Every character on this show is super spoiled. Even Dan and Jenny seem to be under the impression that life is always going to be fair and they're always going to get exactly what they want. Which is pretty funny since it's not clear how they ever got that into their heads. Remember when Dan was super pissed off that he couldn't seem to write a decent short story, so he wrote about the sad story of Chuck's childhood? Nice. Not. It's not a great life lesson to think that you're going to be good at the thing that you want to be good at right away. That just doesn't happen. Everyone knows that you have to keep trying, keep working hard, and hopefully after a while, you're going to have enough experience under your belt that you can finally succeed and even thrive. But nope, Dan would rather whine and complain that no one thought he was a brilliant writer when he was still in high school.

6 Lie Always

Remember Georgina? OMG. All the girl did was lie and it was pretty annoying. No matter how much you love the show and no matter how totally glued to the screen you always were, you couldn't help but totally hate her. She lied about who she was, her past, her romantic feelings, and pretty much everything. But since she kept showing up and you couldn't get rid of her, the lesson seemed to be that lying is totally and completely okay. It's pretty much like as long as you don't get caught, you can do whatever you want, which is a great lesson to learn (not). Georgina is pretty much the definition of an evil person, and you can just see it in her eyes. She is so, so happy when she can create havoc and chaos everywhere that she goes, and that never changed, no matter what episode she was in.

5 Get Married No Matter What

How many husbands did Serena's mom Lily have? We totally lost count. It's safe to say that the woman just cannot be on her own. She can barely be in a relationship without freaking out that she's not married. She's had so many husbands, it's crazy. But, strangely, this doesn't seem to be a problem within the worldview of this show. No one acts like this is a problem. No one acts like she should be single and learn who she is and come to terms with that. Nope, that's not the message that is being sent. Instead, it's that you should get married, no matter what. You should always have a husband and add about a million different last names to your own last name, and that's just the way that things should go. Great lesson. Awesome. Don't worry about getting a job or finding out who you are without a man.

4 Win, Don't Lose

The thing about life is that sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but that's not supposed to be the point. The point is the journey and what you learn and how much you enjoy yourself along the way. Unfortunately, that didn't happen on GG. Remember when everyone was visiting colleges and thinking about what Ivy Leagues they wanted to go to? Serena had always wanted to go to Brown and Blair had always dreamed of going to Yale, but boom, Serena decided to apply to Yale. The two got into a massive fight during a weekend visit there, and it was not pretty. It wasn't even funny. It was just super awkward and all kinds of sad. The lesson here? You should always win and you should never, ever lose. Again, what an absolutely awful lesson. There's nothing wrong with losing, and that's the truth. You just pick yourself up and learn something and keep going.

3 Leave Home

When Jenny leaves her family behind to try to live on her own, it is pretty ridiculous. There is no other way to put it. How could she really think that it is a good idea to forget about how much her dad and brother love her? How could she drop out of high school? It is so bad, it is crazy. It just makes zero sense because no one would really think that they could become a rich and famous and successful fashion designer while they were still in high school. Nope, that just doesn't happen. The lesson that you can leave home at a super young age and stop going to school because hey, family and school are totally boring and you deserve to be a star, is really lame. It is just the worst idea ever and no one should ever do this. What happened to kids being kids?!

2 Grow Up Super Fast

The thing about Gossip Girl that can be really tough to swallow is that the kids on it are growing up way too fast. They can't just be teenagers and have fun and hang out with their friends and figure that the growing up stuff will happen later on. Nope, that's not even remotely close to what happens. Instead, these characters party way too much, sleep with way too many people, and just generally act like adults rather than the kids that they really still are. It's a bit weird when you think about it because do teenagers in real life act like this? Nope, not really. It just wouldn't be possible and parents would never let this happen. You can argue that this is just a fictional show so it doesn't matter, but suggesting that it's okay to grow up too fast is really sad since it can influence teenagers who obsess over the show.

1 Do What Society Says

Ultimately, the characters on Gossip Girl do what their families and what society tells them to. They go to prep school. They look pretty and wear fancy clothes and show up when their parents tell them to. They represent the family well (sometimes… at least in public). This is a life lesson from this show that really sucks the most since the opposite is totally true. You're supposed to listen to yourself and do what is in your heart, not what other people tell you to do. Sure, Nate tries to break away from his dad and Chuck is always trying to forge his own life. But you still get the feeling that these kids don't really want to make their own choices and that they like to look good and do what seems appropriate, like going to Ivy League colleges and getting married and, oh yeah, continuing to wear super trendy (and super pricey) clothes.