Gossip Girl faker and the real Aaron Rose

The new (and worst) character to lurk around the set of Gossip Girl, Aaron Rose, Serena’s artsy and mysteriously older boyfriend, is based on real New York artist Aaron Rose, and he’s pretty bummed about it.

Rose, 39, is the founder of the Alleged Gallery on Ludlow Street; it opened in 1992 and helped to establish a handful of rising talents. "It's funny and it's flattering, but there's a part of me that's like, 'Oh, go after them—this is not cool. They're messing with my reputation,'" says Rose.

Not only is the portrayal of Rose embarrassing thanks to the sheepish ways of barely-there-facial-hair John Patrick Amedori (pictured), fake Aaron’s artwork—done by Radio Silence author Nathan Nedorostek—is pretty embarrassing to Rose as well. "Oh, no!" he exclaims when asked about the fake-Aaron art on the show, "Oh, no! Now you're bumming me out.”

Nedorostek, who is taking the art he designed for the teeny-bopper drama very seriously, confuses little girls in the most pretentious way possible when explaining the metaphysical context of fake-Aaron and his fake-art on the show's website: “His art attempts to address a central idea and the audience at once, which in this circumstance includes the other characters on the show as well as you, the television viewer. In this sense Aaron is unconsciously aware of the un-reality that he exists in as a fictitious character on a television show all the while he consciously struggles to work out some kind of resolution through his art, based on this subconscious inner conflict of said knowledge.” Keep in mind that this guy is saying all this pseudo-philosophical shit about art like a giant ball of lights in the middle of the room, or framed pictures of Serena with white Rayban-shaped cut outs.

Rose, who had no part in the development of the show’s version of him (he was contacted by one of the show’s writers six months ago and then heard nothing) just wishes the character didn’t suck so much: "He's just not cool. Not like I'm Mr. Cool; I'm not trying to say that… I wish they would have made him cooler."