The world’s favourite thing to do or pastime is not soccer, baseball or tennis but gossip. Gossip seeps through every school, workplace, group of friends and family. Gossip is entertainment for most people, but for people that are being gossiped about, it’s not very nice.
People hear a tidbit of information about somebody they may know or not know. They take that info and build a story around it – or sometimes it comes as a pretold story from someone else. But along the way it can get jumbled and misheard and that’s when it can get ugly. Friends tell friends and often more false information is added each time the story is passed on. Suddenly a whole school is talking about how Sandy is pregnant with Damien’s kid when in actual fact Sandy babysat Damien’s cousin’s kid. It can seem so silly that stories can get so carried away.
Gossip gets carried away because talking about other peoples lives can sometimes be much more exciting than talking about our own! We judge other people’s lives even if we don’t mean to – so gossiping about someone else’s problems almost lets us run away with our tongues.
Real life is crazy enough without having people make stuff up about you, and vice-versa.
Magazines
Magazines thrive on gossip and they are just feeding all that gossip onto the people who buy them. Who can resist a cover that says that “Britney and Justin are back together!” You just have to buy it! Sometimes you’ll find that that’s not really the story at all and that they’ve passed each other in the street and a photographer has snapped them saying a quick hello to each other. See how it can get out of control?
Gossip about celebrities can be a “do or die” situation. Reporters or journalists help make the career of actors and athletes by publishing great stories about them. They write rave reviews of something they said or did. But then the same person who built them up in the publics eye can bring them crashing down – reporting on their divorce or other intimate details that don’t need to be known.
Passing on Gossip
Some see that people who like to gossip and listen to gossip don’t think very highly of themselves, but they do think highly of those they are gossiping about. Someone once said “Gossip is a way for people to try to better themselves by lowering another’s selfesteem.
Have you ever heard a piece of gossip and thought that it wasn’t really all that exciting and certainly not something you would pass on as a juicy piece of news? Perhaps the gossp wasn’t about anyone that interested you. But what if you were jealous of someone at school and you heard gossip about them? Surely because this person interests you even if you don’t like them, then you’ll find the next person you can to tell them all about it.
Choosing not to
Our main purpose in life is not to pass on gossip or to make other’s feel bad. We should build lasting friendships and no one should judge someone else based on what another person says. Usually the people talking have something as equal or far worse in their closets.
Remember the saying that your parents probably told you ‘If you don’t have something nice to say, then don’t say anything at all”.
Gossip in The Tribe
Gossip has not reaslly been prevalent in Tribeworld. Everyone has too much else to worry about.
No one says anything when Lex fancies yet another girl. No one comments in the background when Jay goes back to Amber. Everyone is supportive and understanding to those that are hurt and those that are involved. Which says something of the Mallrats. They all value their friendships and have certain morals that remind them not to hurt others maliciously.
Next time you hear a piece of gossip think about keeping it to yourself and perhaps remind the person that told you that they could be the next victim of gossip.