Lapeer – “Where you lead, I will follow”—these famous lyrics instantly transport fans to the opening credits of “Gilmore Girls.” And 25 years after the show’s release, people across Michigan have followed their desire for small-town life out to Lapeer, where event organizers have recreated Stars Hollow.
The show, set in a fictional small town in Connecticut, represents everything missing in modern American cities: an idyllic place full of community investment and connection. The plots, full of small-town gossip and events on the town green, cause fans to mourn what we have willingly traded away.
Lapeer, a town of nearly 10,000, transformed businesses and storefronts to resemble Stars Hollow for an evening. Hundreds of Michiganders walked around the small downtown, stopping for every photo opportunity, with everyone craving the same thing.
“Community, camaraderie, and being neighborly, everyone is longing for that niceness and connection, there is a lot of disconnect in the world today,” Marlette resident CJ Brooks said. “Our phones make it easy to get everything else without being socially interactive. Because of Facebook, I see what you are doing, so I don’t need to talk to you. That is just society as a whole, we’re just lazy, and the phones make it convenient to be disconnected.”
Unlike in Gilmore Girls, where face-to-face conversation is the backbone of relationships, we have let technology define our modern-day relationships. This coming-of-age story is set in the early 2000s, but the themes of the show are perennial: small-town life, community experiences, and relationship building throughout a life.
Stars Hollow is a place where a teenage pregnancy turns into a support system and a family; a bristly diner owner falls in love with an inn operator; and a teenager navigates high-school, college, and romantic relationships with guardrails from her family and friends. Stars Hollow still seems uniquely attainable, making small towns across Michigan recreate it.
But Stars Hollow romanticizes what has led people to reject small town life: the claustrophobia of small-town gossip, tense arguments over local politics, and the struggles of running a business in a small town. Gilmore Girls offers us a vision of community without the hardship, but modern small-town life is all the difficulty without the qualities that make the sacrifice worth it.
“In a small town, everyone looks out for your family,” Ethan Polishuk, another Marlette local, said. “Kids can still be kids, and we don’t have to worry about them, because we know that anybody on the block is willing to do what we would do as parents; they would protect our child like their own, so they’re able to live that more free life.”
The show holds memories for many, and in the 25 years since its release, many people rewatch it every fall.
“I was in high school when Gilmore Girls came out,” Lapeer local Samantha Burger said. “The show is all about Lorelai and Rory and their relationship, Lorelai and Luke and their relationship, and Rory and her relationships; it’s about the connections with people.”
Burger, who brought her three daughters to the festival, said the “Gilmore Girls” storyline highlights human connection and investment, which is something people crave today.
“It’s connection, no one knows anybody anymore,” she said. “We go into coffee shops, and we all sit on our phones. But in a small town, when you do know someone, you’re more obligated to engage in conversation, and it keeps you all kind of grounded together.”
For Burger and her daughters, growing up in small-town Lapeer allows community members to be invested in the town through volunteering and attending events downtown.
“I think that’s where you get plugged in, you have to volunteer,” Burger said. “You got to show up for stuff. Lorelai and Rory were always volunteering for a play and participating, maybe even in the things that aren’t necessarily your thing, you got to show up. You just got to be present.”
Lapeer recreated a fictionalized version of a town attempting to curate authenticity, but how does a modern small town find community life outside of a TV show? Not simply by recreating it one night a year.
Romanticizing the life of an old TV show doesn’t cut it. Creating small-town community requires doing little things like learning the first names of your immediate neighbors.
Talk to the grocer at the store, volunteer at the local charities, attend town hall meetings, become friends with the diner owner, and allow yourself to be known by them too.
“Put your phone down and say hi, and it keeps that community connection going,” Burger said. “When you’re a big community, we know you don’t know anyone, but try, because apart from experiencing an event, it is more about experiencing it with the people you’re around, just like Gilmore Girls.”
Anna Broussard is a contributing writer for Michigan Enjoyer.
