What’s the goss though
Are you a gossip? Of course you are. You might know how to keep a secret, but all humans are, in some way, inherently attracted to gossip. Maybe it’s not about your friends. Maybe it’s about people you’ve never met on reality TV. Maybe it’s other people’s work gossip. A friend of mine had a string of work stories better than any serialised TV show I’ve ever seen.
But gossip is bad, right? Petty and negative; tearing people down rather than holding them up, all without them being able to defend themselves.
Public Service Announcement: let’s not throw the gossipy baby out with the gossipy bathwater.
I know, I know. This is probably not going to be my most popular take, but give me a moment to win you over.
Nobody likes being gossiped about. But if people are saying things behind my back then (since I am absent) only the person talking (the gossiper) and the person listening to that information (the gossipee) can control the significance of the gossip. The gossipee must consider the gossiper. They must consider what they know about me. If they draw a conclusion that’s not in my favour, well they either don’t know me well enough, don’t know their lying jerk friend is a lying jerk yet, or they have some other reason not to like me (including the possibility that the gossip is true).
But we’re not talking about what’s defamatory, we’re talking about feelings, right? Part of the difficulty with gossip is that the people talking about me could be my friends. Maybe they’ve noticed something I do that is frustrating or annoying or unkind. What if talking about it makes them feel better and the importance of my annoying habit dissipates? What if the conversation emboldens them to tell me about this annoying thing? Aren’t we just getting better at being a group of people in the world?
What if I have a habit of chopping the heads off flowers? What if I kick people’s letterboxes in with my steel-capped boots? What if I poison the neighbours’ pets? If people talk about it behind my back and swap notes and come to the conclusion that I am in fact antisocial and/or sociopathic, is this not what society is for?
Have women not done this forever? Taught each other, around the campsite, which blokes to avoid in the dark? Have blokes not done this forever, too? Warned each other about, well, which blokes to avoid in the dark?
In this way, gossip is just like technology. It’s a really nasty tool if it’s used for nefarious purposes. It can also be used to save people or help people or entertain people.
I went to a party once were I knew nobody. “This is Lorin, everybody!” said the host, and several people spontaneously applauded. “Is this ‘wrong swimming stroke in the school sports’ Lorin?” someone asked. My reputation preceded me. My friend had clearly told them an embarrassing story I had once told her. Technically, gossip. Not incorrect gossip. Not nefariously wielded or taken out of context. Just an entertaining story about some idiot friend. Then idiot friend turns up and we all have a shortcut to each other because of some entertaining gossip.
I have a friend who watches dreadful TV shows. Deliberately. With her children. She hates almost all the people on the dreadful TV shows. She hates the cheating husbands and the toxic besties and she and her kids are in absolute uproar after each show. Sometimes, she and the kids report the details of the show to me in abject horror. They talk over the top of each other and describe the most heinously antisocial behaviour, as though they were forced to witness this outrage, rather than tuned in at a specific time to watch it together on purpose. But I get it! They’re learning about toxic behaviour. They’re gossiping together, and with me, about these people none of us will ever meet. We’re learning how to be human! How to be safe! How to know who to trust! Not in a way that is sanctioned or official. We’re learning in a way that teaches us to trust nuanced little things like instincts and feelings and how to decide who we believe, about whom, and why.
Public Service Announcement: wield your gossip deftly. It says a lot about who you are. And no I’m not telling you which show my friend watches. That would be gossip.