#Microblog Monday 199: Gossip
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“The instinct to gossip has been with us ever since there were more human beings than Adam and Eve. Once you went beyond the first two, there was gossip.”
I normally love gossip — at least in the form of People magazine — though I’ve gotten more sensitive to it in this past year. There’s something about unnamed sources coupled with the age of manipulated news that sours me even to the most innocuous stories. But it is so hard to tear myself away from celebrity stories. Plus… it’s sort of sociology if you look at it the same way as this WashPo article:
Lui, 44, is a gossip evangelist. She believes in its value and its power: As a communication tool, a collective finger on the pulse of our culture, a means of sussing out our morals, our insecurities, our aspirations, our fears. She’s part investigative reporter, part breaking-news ethicist, part social anthropologist.
What do you think our gossip scene is saying about us as a people right now?
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12 comments
That’s pretty interesting. I think they would try to find out what keeps us going? From across countries and the variety of topics, what is really that connects these people on Stirrup Queens. 🙂
Btw – did you think of a plan, Mel? 🙂 <3 I am so excited!
Hmm I do not follow celebrity gossip myself. But I agree, to some degree, that the gossip reveals something of our culture and our fears. As far as my admittedly glossed-over view of gossip reading goes I would say we probably fear relationship break down, dressing badly, botched plastic surgery, being fat, ageing, and getting a tad too trashy on drugs/booze.
I think that in the age of social media, gossip is worse because people put so much out there, that of course it becomes gossip fodder. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard “OMG did you see what so and so posted on fb?”. UGH. I think it also makes us feel like EVERYTHING is our business, and the boundaries sort of get lost.
I do enjoy reading some celeb gossip, to a point. It starts to get a bit ridiculous after a while.
I think introverts are not so much into or interested in gossip. Or may be it is just me. 🙂
Gossip makes me uncomfortable because I know that if you’re talking TO me you’re also talking ABOUT me. I do admit that I use it as a tool for navigating the Mom scene at my daughter’s school, however. I do try hard only to listen. I still enjoy some celebrity gossip though not as much as I used to.
So interesting that you bring this up now. I’d originally though of gossip as something only Bad, but after I read the first few chapter of the book Sapiens, I softened that view. In tribal days, gossip helped people know who was trustworthy, who wasn’t, who could be relied on, who couldn’t, etc. The book makes the case that gossip was part of what made sapiens one of many homo species the one that broke out and did all these highly intelligent, sentient, and advanced things we are doing (!?)
Gossip makes me sad (although I do enjoy the salon’s copy of People when I’m getting my hair done). It seems that gossip is so rarely positive, and so often hurtful. Don’t we have better, kinder things to do with our lives than gossip about others? I know it has benefits in pulling people together into an in-group, but from a psychological point of view, the mere creation of the in-group and the out-group means that people will be biased against others and more likely to protect the perceived in-group in favor of the out-group.
I guess this means I need to switch to Food & Wine at my next salon visit, doesn’t it?
I’m not sure that gossip is necessarily bad. If it is just sharing information about people we are interested in, then that’s good. Example: I just got off the phone with my sister, and caught up on all the news of her family and grandson. Yes, it could be gossip, but it was also family news, and that was a good thing.
The thing I distrust about gossip online or in the so-called women’s magazines, is that so often we hear that articles are completely invented. It’s not just gossip, it’s malicious, deliberately untrue gossip. And that is different.
I would say the “quality” of the gossip depends on the motivations of the gossiper. Some is helpful. But some is just malicious. An example of “good” gossip could be when the news of my last pregnancy spread throughout my school although I didn’t ok that. I would say it’s good because it resulted in people supporting me and wishing me well. But the gossip that spreads lies and half truths is not at all good, and people who engage in it are being lazy and allowing themselves to be manipulated imo. And a lot of so called journalism falls into that category. It’s made me deeply cynical.
I’m like Lori: until recently I viewed gossip solely as being a negative thing. The thing about humans is that the written word is more recent invention, meaning we relied on stories and verbal communication to pass along history and spread news. And news, good or bad, can take on qualities of gossip.
I agree that there’s a place for gossip. To me, there’s a difference between the hurtful kind and the friendlier what’s-new kind.
Gossip is a social glue that connects people. When used sporadically it can be a tool to bring people together. Unfortunately it’s rarley used sporatically and usually malicious which has the opposite effect.