You Know You Love Me, XOXO

Abstract: Women in higher education and the consumer pressures they feel have implications for the quality of an education a woman receives. With college tuition rising, more and more college students are going into deeper financial debt than ever before (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2008). Popular culture influences on the college-going population depict success as driving expensive cars, having expensive purses and, generally, living the life of the uber wealthy. In 2002, Cecily von Ziegesar's young adult fiction novels Gossip Girl became wildly popular. Much of these novels are focused around luxury brand names, wealth, popularity, and privilege, which has started a new trend in young adult literature. Few, if any, studies have been conducted to examine the consumer and lifestyle expectations of college women who are Gossip Girl readers. In-depth interviews were conducted with college women who are Gossip Girl readers in one Southern state. A phenomenological case study was used to collect and analyze data about students' perception of the luxury life depicted in the novels and how they make sense of these images and narratives relevant to their college experience and aspirations for the future.