Gossip - What's Does the Grapevine say about you?

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines ‘gossip’ as “information about the behavior and personal lives of other people”. Some sociologists say gossip is a play by play of our social evolution. Gossip provides valuable insight about who we are and where we are going as individuals and collectively as a society. New expats coming into the community gravitate towards people of similar language and background. Newcomers rely on the guiding recommendations of their new allies. Good or bad, ‘gossip’ is something that happens naturally when people share a collective identity. When it's good, it creates bonds, passes along useful information, deepens knowledge and friendship. When it’s bad, it becomes a competitive striving for social status, and conscious or unconscious agendas can drive gossip down poisonous channels.   We have all experienced and been on both sides of gossip. One side is the warm feeling you get from spending time with a friend and sharing stories about mutual acquaintances. The other side is the anger, shame and frustration you feel when you realize someone is spreading bad news about you. We all want to be on the right side of gossip, but sometimes it illuminates while other times it just burns. 

Professor Willer from Indiana University sociology department says, “the trick is to learn to navigate between helpful and malicious or unreliable gossip". Very often gossip is all that rolled into one.

The thing to be aware of is that gossip is giving information not only about the topic, but also about the gossiper. In her talk on the Sociology of Gossip, Elaine Lui says when we gossip, we are sharing our moral expectations and setting a standard of conduct with each other.

When new people come into a community, they gravitate towards people who have been there awhile. In a tribal sense, those people are in the ‘know’ about the social pathways and subtleties of the new community.  In many ways, they are the bards of old, and each have their own story to tell. They are the connectors, carrying the personal history of what has gone on in the area. They know, who has come and gone, what has lasted or fallen apart. They know what has inspired and what was unfair. Thus it is in the rightful license to interpret that the storyteller wields the power through what they say.
The question then remains, do we avoid talking about other people? Absolutely not! That is impossible. We rely on the recommendations, advise and cautions of the people we trust. Also, dwelling on only the good points makes for a rather superficial interaction.

We do however need to be cautious about what we say about others, especially when we don’t know enough about the story. After all, we are probably only hearing one side. I also think we need to be careful not to give ourselves too broad a license when it comes to interpretation. In a small community, the unproven analysis of a person’s character or practices can be seriously damaging. After all, a little gossip goes a long way, and has a way of circling back to you.