XOXO, It's DAN HUMPHREY: How Lonely Boy Became the Pettiest Narrator in TV History. | Gossip Girl.

[00:00:01]I'm I'm Dan Humphrey.

[00:00:03]>> Hi.

[00:00:03]>> Hi. Uh I don't know. We met last year.

[00:00:07]You might not remember.

[00:00:09]>> Yeah, I you probably don't. But look, you should be more careful.

[00:00:12]>> You need to keep your hands off of her.

[00:00:13]>> Claire trying to take advantage of her on the holidays. Come on. Let's go.

[00:00:17]Serena.

[00:00:21]>> Bye, Dave.

[00:00:23]>> Bye. Bye.

[00:00:27]Bye, Serena. Picture this. It's 2012. You've just spent six years of your life watching the most glamorous, chaotic, and aggressively dramatic teenagers in New York City destroy each other over brunch. The series finale has finally arrived. The ultimate question is about to be answered. Who is Gossip Girl? Who is the omnisient, ruthless cyberbully who has stalked, harassed, and exposed the deepest, darkest traumas of the Upper East Side elite? It's Dan. Dan Humphrey, the guy who literally just married the primary victim of his decadel long digital harassment campaign. When the reveal happens, the reactions of the characters are quite frankly medically insane. Serena smiles like he just told her he bought her a puppy. Blair rolls her eyes like he just forgot to take out the trash. The general consensus of the room is essentially, "Oh, Dan, you little rascal. You stalked us and ruined our lives for years. How romantic." But let's be entirely real for a second. If you strip away the terrible 2012 indie pop soundtrack and actually rewatch Gossip Girl with the knowledge that Dan is behind the keyboard, the entire show completely transforms. Dan Humphrey stops being the lovable, waffle eating, romantic underdog from Brooklyn.

[00:02:01]Instead, he morphs into a deeply disturbed, incredibly toxic puppet master. He isn't the moral compass of the Upper East Side. He is [music] without a doubt the most petty, vindictive, and calculating narrator in television history. So, let's grab a cup of coffee that costs more than my rent and talk about exactly how Lonely Boy conned us all. Chapter 1, the moral high ground is located in Brooklyn. To understand the [music] absolute fraud that is Dan Humphrey, we first have to talk about the myth of Lonely Boy.

[00:02:39][music] From the very first episode, Dan's entire brand is built on his status as an outsider. He's the poor, struggling artist from Brooklyn, forced to navigate the treacherous, shallow waters of Manhattan's elite. He constantly wears this invisible badge of moral superiority, looking down his nose at Chuck, Nate, Blair, and even Serena for their unearned wealth and privilege.

[00:03:05]Dan is just a humble, grounded guy. He rides the subway. He eats breakfast with his dad. He doesn't care about status.

[00:03:14]Except that's completely garbage.

[00:03:16][music] First of all, let's address the real estate elephant in the room. The Humphre lived in a massive multi-bedroom exposed brick loft in Dumbo, Brooklyn. His dad was a former rock star who owned an art gallery. [music] Dan and his sister Jenny went to a private school where the tuition is roughly the same price as a luxury sedan every single year. Dan wasn't poor. He was just millionaire poor surrounded by billionaire rich. But Dan desperately needed to be the victim. His poverty was an aesthetic choice, a weapon he wielded whenever he wanted to make Serena feel bad about herself or whenever he needed an excuse for why he didn't fit in.

[00:04:00][music] He didn't hate the Upper East Side because it was corrupt and shallow.

[00:04:04]He hated it because he wasn't invited to the party. This brings [music] us to the core of Dan's personality. He is the ultimate textbook definition of the nice guy. Dan genuinely believed that because he wasn't a billionaire playboy like Chuck Bass, he was inherently a good person who deserved everything he wanted. Specifically, Serena. He put her on this impossible pedestal, projecting his own fantasy of the perfect tragic muse onto Serena. And the second Serena acted like a real human being with flaws, trauma, and a messy past, Dan would instantly punish her with the very moral high ground he [music] claimed to hate. He judged her for drinking. He judged her for her family. [music] He judged her for breathing. He gaslit Serena and everyone around him into thinking he was their grounded savior, all while secretly salivating over the exact power and status they possessed.

[00:05:06]His morality was completely conditional.

[00:05:10]The moral high ground was never about doing the right thing for Dan. It [music] was just a place he could stand so he could look down on everyone else.

[00:05:19]Chapter 2. weaponized Gossip or How to Bully Your Own Sister. Now, if we are accepting that Dan Humphrey is Gossip Girl, which the writers confirmed, so we have to, we need to talk about the blasts because this is where the romantic outsider defense completely falls apart and the sheer unadulterated pettiness of Dan Humphrey shines brightest. When you rewatch the show, knowing Dan is the one hitting send on his [music] footphone, the timing of Gossip Girl's posts becomes deeply, terrifyingly unhinged. Dan didn't use this platform to expose systemic injustice or bring down the billionaire class. He used it to settle high school grudges and throw digital temper tantrums. Let's look at the receipts.

[00:06:09]Starting with his own flesh and blood, Jenny Humphrey. Dan wrote and published [music] blasts about his teenage sister's virginity. He published blasts about her stealing, her banishment from the city, and her lowest, most humiliating moments. [music] And why? To protect his cover? No.

[00:06:29]Because Dan saw Jenny as an extension of his own social standing. When she became queen bee and fully assimilated into the Upper East Side, doing exactly what he secretly wanted to do but couldn't, he punished her for it. [music] And it wasn't just Jenny. Think about his dad, Rufus. Dan literally ruined his own romantic moments, exposed his dad's secret love child, and caused massive riffs in Rufus and Lily's marriage. But the most psychotic behavior is reserved for Serena. Dan would literally be sitting on a bed next to Serena, holding her while she cried over a Gossip Girl blast that he just sent. If Serena didn't text him back fast enough, boom, a blast about her buying pregnancy tests. If Serena decided to date someone else, boom, a blast framing her as a tragic, washed up party girl. He was the definition of an internet troll, but with an horrifying amount of realworld power. [music] Whenever Dan felt insecure, emasculated, or ignored, Gossip Girl would miraculously have a massive scoop that destroyed the exact person who made him feel that way. He weaponized a gossip [music] blog to emotionally manipulate the girl he supposedly loved into thinking that everyone in her life was against her, leaving him as the only safe harbor.

[00:07:56][music] It's peak sociopathic pettiness.

[00:08:00]He didn't win Serena's heart. He essentially put her under a psychological siege until she had Stockholm syndrome. Chapter 3. Main character syndrome and [music] the inside era. If seasons 1 through 4 were Dan playing the covert sniper, season five is when he decides to just drop a nuclear bomb on his own social circle, [music] let's talk about his masterpiece. Let's talk about inside. By the time Dan actually gets his book published, his god complex has fully metastasized. He has spent years controlling the narrative in secret via Gossip Girl. But that's no longer enough. Dan is a writer with a capital W, which means he suffers from a terminal case of main character syndrome. To Dan, his friends, his family, and his romantic [music] partners aren't actual human beings with feelings and interior lives. They are content. They are material to be mined.

[00:09:01]In Inside, Dan does what he does best.

[00:09:04]He rewrites history to make himself the brooding, misunderstood intellectual hero. He names his self-insert character Dylan Hunter, [music] a name so aggressively cringe-worthy it should have been a red flag for his publisher right then and there. But the real crime of Inside is how he portrays everyone else. He reduces Serena, the supposed love of his life, to a shallow, flighty, one-dimensional party girl who is entirely dependent on his character for any shred of depth. He writes Blair [music] as a cold, calculating snob who secretly yearns for his intellectual superiority. He completely eviscerates his best friend Nate, writing him off as a useless, brain deadad golden retriever. And when his friends inevitably find out that he stole their darkest secrets, monetized their trauma, and published it for the world to read, Dan is genuinely baffled that they are upset. This is the ultimate proof of Dan's pettiness as a narrator. When reality doesn't match the fantasy in his head, he simply throws a tantrum and publishes a book to force the narrative.

[00:10:17]He demands to be the center of their universe. He claims he wrote the book to finally get them out of his system, but the truth is he wrote it because he was terrified they might stop paying attention to him. He didn't just want to be part of the Upper East Side. He wanted to own it. He wanted to be the one who dictated who was relevant and who wasn't. Through Inside, [music] Dan stops pretending to be the innocent bystander. He proudly declares himself the puppet master. Looking down from his Brooklyn loft, absolutely drunk on his own pretentious pros.

[00:10:53]The upper east side was like something from Fitzgerald or the teenagers acting like adult. Adults acting like teenagers guarding secrets, spreading gossip, all with the trappings of truly opulent wealth.

[00:11:08]>> And membership in this community was so elite you couldn't even buy your way in.

[00:11:12]It was a birthright, a birthright I didn't have. And my greatest achievements would never earn me. All I had to compare to this world was what I'd read in books. But that gave me the idea.

[00:11:24]>> If I wasn't born into this world, maybe I could write myself into it.

[00:11:33]>> Chapter 4, The Muse versus the Masterpiece. Serena and Blair. If we are looking at Dan Humphrey as a writer and a narrator, we have to examine his lady ladies. Every pretentious writer needs a muse, right? But here is the deeply unsettling truth about Dan's epic romances. He never actually loved Serena Vanderwoodson and he never truly loved Blair Waldorf. What he loved was the idea of them and more importantly what they represented for his own character arc. Let's start with Serena, his supposed soulmate. To Dan, Serena was the golden girl. She was the glowing, untouchable trophy at the top of the Upper East Side Tower. Winning Serena meant that Lonely Boy had finally made it. But he didn't love the real Serena, the messy, insecure, constantly making terrible decisions Serena. He loved the fantasy version he created in his head before they even spoke. because he viewed her as a character in his story rather than a real human being. He felt entirely justified in punishing her whenever she went off script. If Serena dared to act [music] out, date someone else, or prioritize her own chaotic family over him, Dan didn't just break up with her. He [music] used Gossip Girl to assassinate her character. He would leak photos of her at her lowest, most [music] vulnerable moments, exposing her drug use, her family secrets, and her private tragedies. He did this to break her down, ensuring that the glowing [music] pedestal he put her on was the only place she could safely stand.

[00:13:17][music] And then there's Blair. Oh, the dare era. If Serena was the unattainable muse, Blair was the masterpiece. In the later seasons, Dan pivots his obsession toward Blair because she represents something entirely [music] different, intellectual conquest. Blair is a snob.

[00:13:38]She hates everything Dan stands for. So for Dan, making Blair Waldorf fall in love with him is [music] the ultimate ego trip. It proves that his brain, his wit, and his Brooklyn bred superiority can conquer the queen bee herself. Dan decides that he and Blair are going to be this highbrow literary power couple.

[00:13:59][music] But just like with Serena, he refuses to accept the reality of who Blair is. He actively tries [music] to isolate her from her actual life, her dark side, and her undeniable connection to Chuck. He wants the sanitized [music] art film version of Blair. When Blair ultimately chooses her own messy, dramatic life over his curated indie movie fantasy, Dan's fragile ego shatters, how does he respond? By writing another scathing, vindictive expose about her. Of course, the moment these women stepped out of the neat little narrative boxes he built for them, he [music] destroyed them. A healthy partner communicates. A petty narrator publishes your deepest [music] insecurities to millions of people on the internet. Dan didn't want an equal [music] partner. He wanted a leading lady who would hit her marks, say her lines, and make [music] him look like the hero. Chapter 5, the greatest gaslight in TV history. This brings us back to the series finale, [music] the culmination of a decade of cyber bullying, stalking, and psychological warfare. The moment the [music] mask comes off, the laptop closes and Dan Humphrey looks his [music] victims in the eye. This is without exaggeration the greatest gaslight in television history. [music] Let's break down the actual speech Dan gives when he is outed as Gossip Girl. He stands in a room full of people whose lives he has systematically derailed for [music] years. He looks at Serena, the woman whose teenage years he made a living hell, and he has the absolute audacity to call the Gossip Girl blog a love letter. [music] He says, and I quote, "I wasn't born into this world. I had to write myself into it." He spins this horrific web of abuse into a romantic underdog story. He frames himself as a modern-day Gatsby who just used a little bit of HTML [music] to get the girl of his dreams. And the most terrifying part, it works. Serena, [music] completely stripped of any remaining self-respect after years of being psychologically [music] battered by this man's keyboard, just smiles. She literally defends him to her family, saying [music] that Gossip Girl was actually a good thing because it made them all accountable. She completely absolves [music] him of the fact that he sold her out, shamed her, and stalked her. She marries her stalker in a dress that looks like a beautiful golden cage and thanks him for the privilege. And the [music] rest of the elite, Chuck and Blair, they just nod and accept him into their circle. [music] In a deeply twisted way, they respect the hustle.

[00:16:49]Dan proved he could be just as ruthless, [music] just as coldblooded, and just as manipulative as the worst of the Upper East Side. He beat them at their own [music] game. The true tragedy of Gossip Girl isn't what Dan did. It's [music] that he got away with it entirely consequence-free. He didn't just [music] infiltrate the 1%. He broke their minds until they thanked him for doing it. He manipulated the entire social hierarchy of Manhattan into believing that his psychopathic [music] behavior was actually just passionate devotion. He gets the girl. He gets the money.

[00:17:26][music] He gets the status. And he sits at the head of the table. The pettiest man in New York wins.

[00:17:33]Conclusion. Xoxo.

[00:17:36]We let him get away with it. When you look back at how the audience and the writers reacted [music] to this finale in 2012, it is genuinely wild how easily we all let Dan Humphrey [music] off the hook. We were so desperate for a neat romantic bow [music] on the end of the series that we completely glossed over the fact that [music] we had just watched the origin story of a super villain. But time has been the ultimate trutht [music] teller. Even Pennadley himself knows the truth. He has openly admitted on multiple occasions that Dan Humphrey is [music] unhinged.

[00:18:16]In fact, if you really think about it, there is a direct, undeniable pipeline [music] from Dan Humphrey in Gossip Girl to Joe Goldberg in You. It is the exact same [music] character. The only difference is that one uses a flip phone and a blog and the other uses a soundproof glass cage in a basement.

[00:18:37][music] They both weaponize their nice guy persona. They both obsess [music] over women as concepts rather than people, and they both justify their horrific actions in the name of love. Dan Humphrey didn't ruin [music] Gossip Girl. In a way, knowing who he really is makes the show 100 times more fascinating to rewatch. It transforms [music] a teen soap opera into a dark psychological thriller about a guy from Brooklyn who [music] weaponized the internet to steal a life he felt entitled to. So the next time you see the quiet, [music] brooding guy sitting in the corner reading a book and judging everyone else at the party, maybe don't assume he's just a lonely, misunderstood poet, because he isn't lonely. [music] He's just gathering material. But I want to know what you guys think. Drop a [music] comment down below and tell me. Was Dan Humphrey the ultimate Mchavelian mastermind or was he just the luckiest creep on television? Also, if you were Serena, would you have actually married him or would you have filed a restraining order? Let's [music] debate in the comments. If you enjoyed this deep dive into early 2010's TV [music] toxicity, be sure to hit that like button. It really helps out the channel.

[00:20:02]And if you want more video essays dissecting [music] the pop culture we all grew up on, hit subscribe and ring the bell so you never miss an upload.

[00:20:11]Share this video with that one friend who still tries to defend Dan and Serena's marriage. Thank you so much for watching. Until next time, you know you love me. Xoxo. Missy.

[00:20:25][music]