NYC Prep vs. Miami Social

It's the Preps vs. the Miamis as Dave White settles in for a totally shallow, extremely gay evening of cocktails, Botox, pedicures, and fakery with the latest in quality reality programming, courtesy of Bravo.

By Dave White

NYC Prep kids being better than you

My editor presents me with an excellent, retro, public high schoolish task. Compare and contrast Bravo's NYC Prep (three status-clawing episodes in) and Bravo's upcoming Miami Social. I like this assignment because it relieves me of the burden of having to compete with the 1 billion other people writing about Michael Jackson's televised memorial service (I got choked up when his daughter spoke, just like you should have) and takes my mind off how our elected officials are about to fuck us all out of a public health care option and also about the next Korean war that I think debuts right after Miami Social . This is why there's Bravo. They make it easier to sleep at night.

Okay, so NYC Prep is this show where some spoiled prep school kids (and one public school ragamuffin from the streets) cavort about in a "Peanuts"-like, parents-erased Manhattan. And I think they really did digitally remove the adults from most of the footage. I have a friend who works in post-production and he once spent weeks disappearing some wrinkles from the face of an aging A-list actress for a romantic comedy that went on to make billions of dollars. This can really be done. So I assume that in some of the scenes shot in homes that there probably was a person over the age of 17 sitting in the room and cluttering up the aspirational portrait of floppy-haired teens lounging luxuriously on piles of money, but they just got obliterated from the shot after the fact.

Miami Social is about a bunch of really gross people. Some male, some female, some gay, some straight. And that's it. Just these people tossed together that you're supposed to give a fuck about for no reason other than that they are in Miami, studiously avoiding the camera crew following the Gimme Sugar Miami girls around, and tossing out bitchy comments. There's no glue holding them together that is not the show itself. The show says that they're all friends and that they are the people who "make Miami spin." But after watching the rough cut of the first episode (disclaimer on DVD: some of what I saw might not make it to air, or, in reality TV lingo, "EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS ABOUT TO CHANGE"), I believe they all became friends the day they met for casting callbacks.

Now for the compares and the contrastsâ€¦

TV Land

The Prep kids exist at Christmas time in Manhattan, swaddled in cashmere (except for when power-ennui-er PC goes to Cancun and rolls himself like a piece of Shake 'N Bake chicken in the sand) and puffy coats. Then they sit around the Robert Longo-painting adorned penthouses of their invisi-parents and talk about how tiring it is to be so rich. Seriously, they're exhausted. It's pretty great.

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Dave White is the author of Exile in Guyville . Find him at www.imdavewhite.com

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Reader Comments

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Name: Shayna
Date posted: 7/22/2009 1:48:00 PM
Hometown: huntsville

Comment:
This show pisses me off. These kids dont know what hard work is. And that Jessie bitch she is so ugly she makes me sick looking at her. Her eyes are so cross eyed you dont even know who she is looking at and her mouth oh my god it speaks for itself. And Camille that ugly rich bitch to somebody just needs to smack the shit out of her to.
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Name: blakey
Date posted: 7/14/2009 6:51:00 PM
Hometown: empire

Comment:
Why doesn't this site post some real news like racist bitch Sonia Sotomayor's inevitable reigning in as supreme court judge regardless of the fact of her inexperience,poor grades; her nasty temper; her racist comments and group organization memberships. Gaycom and Advocate would only make that an article if it were a white Christian Republican male making similar racist tyrannical comments....
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Name: blake
Date posted: 7/14/2009 6:47:00 PM
Hometown: keyes

Comment:
Bravo sucks, mindless entertainment...
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Name: johnnymike
Date posted: 7/14/2009 3:20:00 PM
Hometown: Tampa

Comment:
I've only seen one episode, and PC is such a hot GAY BOY! When's his coming out special??
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Name: HONORABLEARTHUR
Date posted: 7/14/2009 12:00:00 PM
Hometown: WILLIAMSTOWN,NJ

Comment:
PLEASE REPLACE NY PREPS, WITH SOMETHING THAT AN EDUCATED PERSON CAN " REALLY " APPRECIATE??? THANK YOU
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Name: J
Date posted: 7/14/2009 9:42:00 AM
Hometown: chicago

Comment:
Whats happened to Bravo? It use to be arts and independent movies, now its just a mixture of boring, bad reality shows. who really cares about the Housewives of who knows where and a school of spoiled rich kids with such angst. Rethink the direction of Bravo or should we now call it the Garbage and Ridiculous Channel
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Name: Zeke
Date posted: 7/14/2009 9:34:00 AM
Hometown: Green Bay, WI

Comment:
What people choose to watch is a great tool for looking at their personality. These shows are shallow, narcissistic and for socially inept who like to guise themselves as highly skilled socially, when nothing could be further from the truth. People don't watch these shows because they are looking to make themselves better people or to connected to a better part of their humanity in any way, they watch them to delve deeper into unnecessary drama. These shows also tend to appeal to those who would love to direct other people's lives, tell them how to live, judge and critique them, and yet these are the same people who decry this in their own lives, don't you dare tell these people how they should be living. Western "civilization" seems to put in place many very unhealthy habits physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. These horrible shows will continue until people wake up and start living their own lives for once.
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Name: Ryan King
Date posted: 7/11/2009 3:00:00 PM
Hometown: Santa Clarita, CA

Comment:
This was hilarious - mostly because of how true it was! Bravo's reality shows are long-established guilty pleasure of mine, and you captured them perfectly.

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