There’s nothing unique about hating high school, but most people who vow never to return to their hometowns probably don’t hail from New York City. I grew up primarily on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, attending private school (first a WASPy all-girls’ prep school; then a competitive, elite-college-obsessed co-ed school) and resenting the experience in only the way a clueless privileged kid can.
When I left New York for a small liberal arts college in Ohio, I didn’t think I’d never go back (I did want to visit my parents and hit up Xi’an Famous Foods on holiday breaks), but I promised myself I would never again become invested in the New York drama that had so enthralled, and alienated, me as a teenager. I hadn’t exactly thrived in my rarefied prep-school environment, earning poor grades in everything but English class and failing to connect with most of my classmates. But once I was happily ensconced in my college’s social scene, I told myself my adolescent misery had been New York’s fault. Of course I’d flopped in what I saw as a shallow, cliquish, status-obsessed environment where your parents’ income determined your worth.
Now in my mid-30s, I live in Los Angeles, visit friends and family in New York as often as I can, and have even patched things up via Instagram DM with many of my prep-school opps. (As it turns out, sometimes yesterday’s mean girl is today’s extremely kind pediatric neurosurgeon!) Still, I’m a little shocked to find myself as drawn as I am to the antics of the rich, ridiculous, occasionally lovable nepo babies of Next Gen NYC.
The Bravo series, which is currently in its second season, follows Gen-Z influencers including model Emira D’Spain; Ava Dash, daughter of record executive Damon Dash; Brooks Marks, son of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Meredith Marks; and Gia Giudice, daughter of Real Housewives of New Jersey antihero Teresa Giudice and watching its cast members frolic down the Jersey shore, attend galas at the Frick, and gather for Halloween at House of Yes is weirdly cathartic. No, these aren’t the kids I grew up with (most of them aren’t actually born-and-raised New Yorkers, for a start, and many of them made their own money beginning in childhood), but they’re certainly of a similar mold.
Watching Next Gen NYC leaves me with a lot of questions (for one: what on earth was the nature of Charlie Zakkour’s involvement with the SoHo crypto torture house that everyone keeps referencing but nobody will describe in detail?), but it also reminds me on a deep, almost cellular level of another Bravo series from almost 20 years ago: NYC Prep. That short-lived, Gossip Girl-lite reality show centered on five rich, New York private-school kids—and, gasp, a brainy student from one of the city’s (impossible-to-buy-yourself-into) specialized public high schools.
