I had the singular pleasure of visiting with a bunch of my high school friends the other week, and one of them put me on to a podcast I had not heard about before Normal Gossip. She said it was som…
I’m a fan of this historian, and this blog post tickled my brain. Hopefully you find it interesting.
Her opinion is that she likes gossiping, she reveals that in the first paragraphs. She also seem to make no distinction between “good and bad” gossiping and the “social grooming” aspect of it us just assumed to be good.
She seem to conflate “gossiping” with “talking” to people, witch is absurd to me. At least to me, “gossiping” have a very negative connotation and essentially means the “nasty talk” people engage in while sharing information that’s none of their business, like others sex life. It’s not “gossiping” when you’re distributing serious information about sex-pests and such. Also, “social grooming” sends chills up my spine, it’s just screams social exclusion and popular clique.
Honestly the vibe I get from the author is that she wrote this in her own defense, she wants to talk body count and misfortune. Otherwise she would have gone more into the “free speech” aspect of disseminating socially necessary information that powerful people don’t want to be shared. But again this is just people talking, not “gossiping” as I understand the word. The fact that she dosn’t seem to understand the difference is a red flag.
I think she’s using it in the same sense as the Oxford dictionary “conversation about other people and their private lives” which is certainly closer to how people around me use it. Like a normal greeting to my friends would be “what’s the goss?” and they would tell me how their lives are going.
Specifically my experience is gossip is when femme presenting people discuss people. Before I transitioned doing the same things in a masculine context would be “shooting the shit” or “having a yarn”. Potentially some local regional variation.
Certainly calling someone a gossip has extremely negative connotations here, more in line with your perception. A gossip would be a femme presenting person (always) who has a reputation for spreading unkind information, often fictional, about people.
I think she is a fucking lackwit. Gossip is a foundational element of bullying and has negative value. My childhood was made hell as a result,fuck everyone who defends it in any way with a bat wrapped in barbed wire. That’s my opinion.
Hmm, I can’t say I agree. As she points out historically gossip has been one of the only ways for disprivliged people to defend themselves. Certainly in my own life, gossip has been the means through which people were warned away from predators in the kink community who couldn’t safely be confronted.
It can definitely be a tool for evil, as the pain you write with highlights quite well. Although so can direct confrontations, violence, even gift giving but can also be forces for good. I think we should be cautious about universal condemnations of human social behaviours, but I do want to say that I see your hurt and you’re not wrong for feeling wary/angry.
I do find it interesting how she highlights the strongly gendered lines around gossip, even when in the case she cites men are doing the same thing the legal/religious interpretation is very different.
Well guess what sweaty, you can discuss the idea of gossip and it turns out that at least in the global north people weren’t always so uptight about it.
But a lot of others wanted to talk about the sex lives of the people in their community, which, damn girl same???
To me, every bit of anonymous gossip is my own private soap opera, and I simply love to hear it.
But here’s the thing: if we can see an up-tick in the condemnation of gossip it means that there was a point in time when it was also considered both chill and also cool because, actually it does the exact opposite of pushing people out – it brings people together.
Gossip is a moral failing. Fuck everyone who engages in it.
What did you think of Eleanor’s opinions? They (and the academic reception, at least according to her) differ quite drastically from yours.
Her opinion is that she likes gossiping, she reveals that in the first paragraphs. She also seem to make no distinction between “good and bad” gossiping and the “social grooming” aspect of it us just assumed to be good.
She seem to conflate “gossiping” with “talking” to people, witch is absurd to me. At least to me, “gossiping” have a very negative connotation and essentially means the “nasty talk” people engage in while sharing information that’s none of their business, like others sex life. It’s not “gossiping” when you’re distributing serious information about sex-pests and such. Also, “social grooming” sends chills up my spine, it’s just screams social exclusion and popular clique.
Honestly the vibe I get from the author is that she wrote this in her own defense, she wants to talk body count and misfortune. Otherwise she would have gone more into the “free speech” aspect of disseminating socially necessary information that powerful people don’t want to be shared. But again this is just people talking, not “gossiping” as I understand the word. The fact that she dosn’t seem to understand the difference is a red flag.
This is a person I don’t want at the table.
I think she’s using it in the same sense as the Oxford dictionary “conversation about other people and their private lives” which is certainly closer to how people around me use it. Like a normal greeting to my friends would be “what’s the goss?” and they would tell me how their lives are going.
Specifically my experience is gossip is when femme presenting people discuss people. Before I transitioned doing the same things in a masculine context would be “shooting the shit” or “having a yarn”. Potentially some local regional variation.
Certainly calling someone a gossip has extremely negative connotations here, more in line with your perception. A gossip would be a femme presenting person (always) who has a reputation for spreading unkind information, often fictional, about people.
Social grooming is the name of a behaviour among apes: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_grooming e.g. my wife adjusting my hair is social grooming. It’s just an academic term.
I think she is a fucking lackwit. Gossip is a foundational element of bullying and has negative value. My childhood was made hell as a result,fuck everyone who defends it in any way with a bat wrapped in barbed wire. That’s my opinion.
Hmm, I can’t say I agree. As she points out historically gossip has been one of the only ways for disprivliged people to defend themselves. Certainly in my own life, gossip has been the means through which people were warned away from predators in the kink community who couldn’t safely be confronted.
It can definitely be a tool for evil, as the pain you write with highlights quite well. Although so can direct confrontations, violence, even gift giving but can also be forces for good. I think we should be cautious about universal condemnations of human social behaviours, but I do want to say that I see your hurt and you’re not wrong for feeling wary/angry.
I do find it interesting how she highlights the strongly gendered lines around gossip, even when in the case she cites men are doing the same thing the legal/religious interpretation is very different.
WDYM she seems like a lovely person…
I’m assuming/hoping the preface is sarcasm.