Gossip Girl reboot lands title of HBO Max’s most-watched original series

People are talking about the new reboot of Gossip Girl.

The series won the honor of becoming the most watched new HBO Max original series after its July 8 debut, according to The Wrap.

The show also “saw a greater proportion of new subscribers choosing it as the first thing to watch after signing up,” according to HBO Max.

“Within an hour of the episode’s premiere at 12:01 a.m. PT on Thursday, the show was trending # 11 nationally on Twitter, continuing in the Top 5 until midday, ”HBO Max said, according to The Wrap.

Additionally, the streamer saw a 200% increase in viewership for the original Gossip Girl series.

A reboot of the hit CW series of the same name, the reboot of Gossip Girl premiered Thursday with a shocking reveal.

For all of its six seasons, the central mystery of the original CW show revolved around who was behind a blog that revealed the outrageous secrets of privileged teens attending an exclusive private school in Manhattan.

However, viewers of the HBO Max reboot learned about Gossip Girl’s identity in the first episode.

The show’s eponymous blogger turned out to be a group of high school teachers, led by Kate Keller (Tavi Gevinson).

At the start of the premiere, Kate accidentally meets Queen B Julien (Jordan Alexander) from school and is ridiculed by Julien and his clique. Kate then bursts into the teachers’ room to talk about the legitimate behavior of Constance Billiard’s spoiled students to her fellow teachers.

After hearing about the notorious Gossip Girl blog from another teacher, Kate and several teachers began browsing the site which had exposed the juicy events of the chic school and intimidated its former attendees.

Kate and some of the other teachers are inspired to revive Gossip Girl to control their rude and recalcitrant students and forgiving parents.

After their first attempts to recreate Gossip Girl as a Twitter account fail to take off, Kate and the teachers launch an Instagram page.

Kate and her colleagues begin to spy on the students and post photos of their sordid exploits. After the Gossip Girl account focuses on the drama between Julien and his stepsister, Zola (Whitney Peak), who is new to school, the page’s popularity explodes.

Original series creator Joshua Safran, who serves as showrunner for the reboot, discussed the decision-making behind the surprising twist during an interview with Variety.

He explains, “I have friends who work in private schools on the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side. And I went to one, obviously. I have often thought since the end of the first Gossip Girl that maybe there was a show among the teachers of these rarefied schools, but I never landed on anything.

“And then I was talking to my friends a few years ago about the little changes they had noticed in the parents of the students during the years they were teaching there.

Safran went on to say, “I don’t remember if I first knew that there would be teachers and a teacher would be Gossip Girl, or if I first knew that I would know who Gossip Girl was. and that it would be a teacher.

“The two were so neck and neck to me. I was also very interested in the roads that we hadn’t explored the first time around, and the teachers – that was a whole area. Especially teachers in private schools who are younger than teachers in public schools, who earn less money than teachers in public schools, who graduate from university and are not so far removed from the age of the students as they teach. All of this combined seemed to be really fertile territory.

He also touched on the potential ramifications that becoming a Gossip Girl could have on teachers. “It’s a matter of caution,” said Safran. ‘This is an uplifting tale. We will not only be following what Gossip Girl does to children, but also what Gossip Girl does to them.

“And it’s incredibly messy and morally compromised, obviously.”