'Gossip Girl' Returns as an Instagram Influencer

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The new trailer rolls in with Frank Ocean's "Super Rich Kids" playing in the background as students at Manhattan's Constance Billard School for Girls and St. Jude's School for Boys are seen updating their socials as they strut the school halls and smoke on the Met's grand stairwell.

"Eight years after the original website went dark, a new generation of New York private school teens are introduced to the social surveillance of Gossip Girl. The prestige series will address just how much social media — and the landscape of New York itself — has changed in the intervening years."

Original cast member Kristen Bell will return to narrate the forthcoming series, and a few familiar faces like Tavi Gevinson, Thomas Doherty and Emily Alyn Lind joined the fray. The cast will also feature Jordan Alexander, Savannah Smith, Zion Moreno, Evan Mock, Laura Benanti, Adam Chanler-Berat and Jonathan Fernandez to name a few others.

In a very 2021 twist, Gossip Girl has taken new form as an anonymous Instagram account that keeps tabs on students, opting for a DM tip line rather than SMS messages.

"It's just a new look at this particular society in New York, the idea being that society changes constantly," screenwriter Joshua Safran said. "So how has this world changed, how has social media and its effect changed? All of those things allow us to look at the world 12 years on as opposed to just redoing the story."

HBO Max's Gossip Girl premieres July 8.

Photo via Getty/ Jose Perez/ Bauer-Griffin/ GC Images