This Potential Gossip Girl Reference In You Proves Joe & Dan Are Truly The Same

Gossip Girl’s legacy will live on — even if HBO Max just canceled its modern-day reboot. A subtle potential Gossip Girl reference from the new season of YOU is going viral on TikTok, which hilariously calls out Penn Badgley’s charming stalker Joe Goldberg for gossiping too much. The moment happens during one of the first episodes of Season 4, when Lukas Gage’s character Adam Pratt tells Joe (who’s going by Jonathan), “Naughty Jon, I never took you for a gossip.”

Joe simply nods and smirks at the remark, but fans caught on to the potential reference almost immediately. Badgley’s Gossip Girl character Dan Humphrey was eventually revealed as the true identity of Gossip Girl during the original show’s series finale, making him the gossip of all gossips. It’s not known whether Gage’s line was an intentional reference to the series or simply a coincidence, but regardless, Dan’s legacy lives on.

This is not the only subtle Gossip Girl reference on YOU, considering the main storyline on Season 4 is essentially a repeat of Dan’s own journey on Gossip Girl. As pointed out by USA Today, the new season sees Joe move to London and quickly get acquainted with a group of elite socialites, despite being an outsider. After getting closer to his new friends (who start getting killed), Joe starts to receive mysterious text messages threatening to reveal his true identity and murderous past, just like Dan got threats about life (even though he was Gossip Girl).

This is not the first time that TikTok has caught onto a hidden Dan Humphrey easter egg. In March 2021, a TikTok user realized that Gossip Girl’s true identity was actually subtly revealed in the show’s first episode. During one of Kristen Bell’s iconic voiceovers, the camera pans to Dan sitting on his laptop quickly after she asks, “Who am I?” She told viewers on day one, but it took six more seasons for us to catch on.