NYC Prep

[Drover]

I'm almost embarrassed to admit this but I just got done watching the entire season. I don't begrudge any of these kids for their lifestyle because they didn't choose it and don't really have any reason to know better. Their parents, however, should know better. If by some miracle my wife and I come into the kind of money these folks have, my kids will never know it until some time after they are financially independent from us.

Despite the fact that we're clearly not supposed to "like" any of these people, I found at least something to like about all of them except Sebastian. That vacuous, hair-flipping little git is a waste of perfectly good carbon chains.

PC is mostly insufferable. He's a J.D. Salinger cliché: self-consciously jaded and world-weary at 18 years old, simultaneously bored with and above it all. He's too cool to derive any joy out of life, and so constantly aware of his own supposed maturity in a way that puts everyone else on notice that, despite all he's experienced in life, he's exceptionally immature in many ways. This becomes particularly evident whenever he doesn't get his way, at which time he becomes absolutely vicious and goes for the jugular of whomever has denied him. No doubt some of his act is just that -- an affectation for the benefit of the cameras. But many of his reactions when he's rebuffed or doesn't get his way are clearly candid. Despite it all, he's obviously sharp and witty and could potentially be an interesting and entertaining fellow to have around. But he really needs to get out of the UES/UWS bubble and go some place where people are not impressed by money as status -- frankly he needs to be humbled.

Jessie is a stereotypical high school "queen bee" of the popular crowd. Other than the inflated sense of self that comes with being the queen bee and her stereotypical NYC superiority complex (distinguishing between "real" New Yorkers and transplants and disapproving of the latter, believing that many commonplace aspects of her life are somehow unique to the New York experience), she seems pretty grounded. She doesn't seem terribly caught up in the status that money brings -- she lives the lifestyle because it's all she knows. At 17, she's already figured out that superficial relationships are a waste of time. She knows who are her real friends and who aren't and she has no interest in humoring the latter -- quality over quantity. She's ambitious and driven, yet her goals are realistic and attainable. When it came time to go to college, did she seek out prestige by aiming for Harvard or Yale or Columbia? Nope -- she chose FIT. And there she will be exposed to lots of people whose means and lifestyle are substantially below hers, and hopefully she'll get an understanding of how privileged her life has been so far and be able to put it in perspective. She'll also most likely get knocked down a peg or two by being just another face in a sea of students where her high school "queen bee" status won't impress anybody. Her major shortcoming is that she's loyal to a fault. Her devotion to PC is both admirable and toxic -- he brings out the worst in her, and the sad part is he does it deliberately and she lets him. But she seems like a good person to have in your corner. In the end, I think Jessie will turn out fine.

Kelli also doesn't seem terribly caught up in status. She strikes me as a normal teenage girl whose parents just happen to have ungodly piles of money that affords her advantages and opportunities most kids won't have. She strikes me as grounded as could be expected of a teenage girl in her circumstance. As for "living alone," she has subsequently interviewed that Bravo exaggerated that angle. Apparently her dad lives with her brother and her during the week, and the whole family is together in the Hamptons on the weekends.

Camille is another who plans to take advantage of the head-start her parents' money will give her, and she rightly refuses to make any apologies about it. But after that she plans on making it on her own. She's clearly smart, ambitious and goal-oriented -- to a fault. She's aiming for Harvard and actually stands a fair chance of getting in. If not, I'd put 95% odds of her getting into some other Ivy-league school or a school of similar caliber and prestige. But she's way, way too uptight about her academic and career pursuits. She's so single-minded about it that she doesn't seem to have a lot of empathy for people who aren't quite as ambitious or don't share similar goals. Unfortunately, people don't like people who are like that. Hopefully she'll unwind a little in college or shortly afterward.

Taylor is smarter than she lets on. The show places a lot of emphasis on the fact that she's the "public school" student of the lot. What they glance over almost entirely is that she attends a very selective magnet school that probably has higher academic standards than most of the private schools the other kids attend. But she's a little socially awkward and obviously very insecure, as evidenced by the fact that she absolutely refuses to look anyone in the eye when she talks to them. Where this group is concerned, she's a hamster in a pit of vipers, she knows it, and she's still intimidated by it. Despite her irritating social climbing, she appears to understand how intractably silly all of the pomp and pretension of the "upper-crust" crowd is. And she pierces right through it at one of the oh-so-posh dinner parties during an earnest conversation about everyone's future aspirations. When it gets around to her turn, her response is "I want to be an elephant trainer." And with that, she deflates every single stiff-jawed windbag in that room. In the end, it appears her social climbing is really about just wanting to be part of the "in crowd, and even that has its limits: she tells off PC ("I'm not your social experiment") at the risk of committing social suicide. She refuses to take all of it, or herself, too seriously. Overall, Taylor strikes me as the most grounded of the lot -- and I suppose it's no coincidence that she's also the least privileged (though clearly her mom is not merely scraping by).

Sebastian is a walking blank who desperately needs to be punched in the crotch. With all that money, you'd think he could at least buy a clue. Even when he puts together a charity event, it turns out his primary motivation was to appear more sensitive to improve his standing in the eyes of girls. I simply could not find any redeeming quality in this knothead. Did anyone else?

It would be interesting if we could periodically check in on these kids to see what becomes of them, kind of like the British "7 Up" documentary series.

[StilltheSame]

Originally Posted by Drover

It would be interesting if we could periodically check in on these kids to see what becomes of them

No. No it would not.