In last week's Sunday Styles section of the New York Times, a column ran about the new Bravo reality series "NYC Prep" which follows the exploits of a group of five kids who attend posh Manhattan private schools (and one who attends Stuyvesant, the city's most selective public school).  The column's main point is that the parents of students like the ones depicted on the show and the administrators of the schools that they go to do not like the show or the image of students attending prep schools in New York City that it creates.  Parents, administrators and other prep students are quoted in the article, mostly under the cover of "fear of blow-back" anonymity, making the claim that the kids on the show are an aberration, that their very conspicuous consumption of alcohol, clothing and drama are atypical amongst their peers.  There is a problem, though.  While the article is correct in its assessment of the show as entertainment, for it truly is awful, it has missed the boat on its adherence to reality.  Which is to say, the show is about as horrid as it is true; in its depiction of Upper East Side-dwelling über-rich kids, it is totally and completely accurate.

The article makes the conclusion that because the schools that these kids attend are second tier prep schools (“there would never be a Brearley girl on this show” is the quote from Victoria Goldman, author of "The Manhattan Guide to Private Schools and Selective Public Schools" that ends the article), they don't know not to be passé and show off their wealth, and that the whole thing is an exercise in overcompensating because their schools are sub-standard within this world.  The article also quotes people as believing that the show is "total garbage," and that's totally true.  However, when the article attempts to dispel the notion that these kids aren't a good example of their social set it falls apart.  Parents are quoted as saying that the show "reflect[s] wrong-headed stereotypes," and is "distressing" because, according to the leader of NYC-Parents in Action, it "isn't representative of who we are."  Except it absolutely is.  The show is entirely representative of who these kids are.  It perfectly showcases their desire for status, their partying habits and the general wavelength of thought in their heads.  I know this because I went to school with them.

Not these exact kids, but ones just like them.  While I'm certainly not nor ever was one of these kids, I grew up in Manhattan and went to a posh prep school in the City and thus knew a lot of kids like the ones featured on the show.  In the name of full disclosure, I have no problem admitting that I was not popular in high school, in fact I had one friend in my school (she was also my girlfriend), and the only person I talk to from my high school class was my best friend when we were ages three to thirteen who subsequently ignored me for the next five years (she was really cool).  The truth is, I just didn't fit in with most of my classmates.  I preferred to walk around the Upper West Side with my friends (none of whom attended my high school) and yap away instead of hitting various parties that had post card invitations, titles like "Explosion" and "Hurricane," and required twenty dollar cover charges.  I didn't wear nice clothes.  I was a huge theater nerd.  But, the larger issue is that I was separated economically from most of my peers and I was keenly aware of this at the time.  Take one example, the mother of my high school girlfriend's best friend didn't work and wore diamonds and stones on each finger the approximate value of which equaled a luxury car while my mother was (and is) the lower school's librarian.  Or take this one, a girl in the class after mine was the granddaughter of a physician who was one of America's earliest adopters of liposuction.  Her family owned several original Rembrandts and every month her father deposited into a bank account two hundred dollars for her to do with anything she pleased.  Two hundred dollars was also the amount of money that my father gave me on my first day of college, meant to last forever.

The money is obviously key here, as it so often is in this world.  The NY Times article suggests that it's the second tier prep schools that makes these kids act in such a revolting manner, but it's really the money.  It's the thing that makes these kids think that everything will work out or that they've accomplished something and have some stature, while their bemused parents look on, or don't.  Extreme wealth from birth changes the way people look at and interact with other people, it creates a system by which to judge it all.  Ironically, when it's finance isn't in question, it becomes the only concern.  I'm not suggesting that these are the only kinds of prep schoolers in the New York City, just that this kind exists.  The show has not fabricated them.

My experiences in high school and in the periphery of the world that "NYC Prep" explores make watching the show a really interesting experience.  It's loathsome to watch these people go about their lives, to wallow in their wealthied self-delusion and prattle on about all the things they've experienced, and part of the reason why it makes my skin crawl is because it's just so damned true.  There's nothing about the show that rings false to me.  I've seen all these conversations happen first hand, watched kids like these debate the pros and cons of being in a relationship versus being a free agent, sat through ordered-in dinner parties in formal living rooms while parents vacationed far away, and listened to kids casually mention how tough life is while having their every need met.  What the kids on "NYC Prep" are doing is nothing new and it's most certainly not an abberation. 

It's odd to be defending the verisimilitude of reality television, but I guess that's really what I'm doing.  The thing is, the show doesn't make pretense that it is going to exhibit these kids in a good light, the idea of reality tv is that the cast makes its own light, and the spectacle of their lives is part of the trashy draw, especially here.  And, because it rings so true to me maybe it also rings true to all the parents and administrators who hate it so much, maybe they are offended because they see exactly this behavior every day in either the classroom or the living room.  What really sets it apart from other docu-series like it is that the kids offer no artifice.  They aren't smart or savvy enough; the show is a truly unfiltered look into their heads, as they seemingly treat the camera as a therapist.  Unlike, for example, any cast member of the "Real Housewives" franchise, these kids don't have the skill to constantly be spinning themselves, to be perpetually in a state of self-advertising, for themselves or their brand.  (If they had that skill they wouldn't have signed up for this at all, as the article is right that it makes them all look very gauche.)  Because of this, the show actually lives up to the "reality" moniker, and to claim that this show is a dishonest depiction of this social set is absurd.

**concurrently posted on stevesword.com