Gossip: What is the reasoning for gossip, pro and con?

[RedAmazoneFriendZone]

Unless you are working for Journalism at Paris Match or Voici it is USELESS.

They gossip because they can't be happy with their own life, aren't able to enjoy silences.

Their soul is sick. People like that are just a mix of boredom + envy.

 

[Lark]

Unless you are working for Journalism at Paris Match or Voici it is USELESS.

They gossip because they can't be happy with their own life, aren't able to enjoy silences.

Their soul is sick. People like that are just a mix of boredom + envy.

I was thinking about the relationship to journalism today too.

It was because the BBC was broadcasting a lot of news that did not seem like it qualified as news at all, it was non-news, it was an exercising in airing things to avoid airing other things and I think its becoming increasingly typical of the media. Its so, so dumbed down. It is really only gossip and treating politics like reality TV.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

When people like coworkers gossip and bitch to me about other coworkers, I get uneasy and tend to want to keep them at arms' length, because chances are they're also gossiping and bitching about me when I'm not around.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

I see gossip as saying things about people when they are not around that you wouldn't say if they were around. If there is a reason to say something about someone, it is a good practice to imagine they are also standing in the room. There can be reasons to talk about how someone hurt you or to mention someone's skill, or discuss people with other people because humans are social creatures, but it gets destructive when a person is two-faced and speaks and behaves differently when the person is around or not around. There are times when you have to be pleasant to an employer or someone with power over you but they also hurt and stress you out. What I try to do if I feel a need to talk about something like that is to avoid discussing it with other people who interact with the person. I may share things with my sister on the phone who lives in another state and has no relationship with the employer, or with a professional counselor. It can also help if there is a way to discuss the person anonymously so that no ever knows who you are talking about, so that no relationships are impacted

When I first moved to my new location a potential colleague aggressively befriended me, but she said really negative things about a lot of people here and presented it as though she was protecting me, but it felt like she wanted me to have the same opinions as she had. There is some reason to warn others, but I think you also have to allow people to form their own relationships with others because there are people I don't get along with, but someone else might. Others shouldn't have the same opinions as me because their experiences could be very different. When there are social fights and divides in a community there is a way people try to create "teams" or something through gossip, and that is something I avoid. My principle here is to try not to say things about people that would influence their relationships with those people. Keep discussion away from environments where they will have an impact so that mistaken perceptions don't cause harm.

When you really look at the topic it is complex because all discussions about people are hard to avoid, but there are ways to minimize it and to keep a kind of ethical framework for it that is not based on control or two-facedness.

 

[Lark]

When people like coworkers gossip and bitch to me about other coworkers, I get uneasy and tend to want to keep them at arms' length, because chances are they're also gossiping and bitching about me when I'm not around.

Yeah, I think that's likely, then you get the real bastards who are very nasty behind your back but manage to some how conceal it completely in your company. I've known a few of them too.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Yeah, I think that's likely, then you get the real bastards who are very nasty behind your back but manage to some how conceal it completely in your company. I've known a few of them too.

Yep, been burned by those types of people a lot in the past. I used to be a pretty outgoing person, but after dealing with enough games and two-facedness, I became very reserved and extremely selective about who I speak to and what I say.

I remember one particularly embarrassing situation when I was about 20 and had a crush on a female co-worker. I was mentioning her to a different co-worker and asking about her, and I explicitly said not to go repeating my interest to other people, but they proceeded to tell pretty much the entire company. I probably handled it well, outwardly, using self-deprecation and brushing it off, but on the inside, I just wanted to crawl into a hole and die

 

[Maou]

I personally don't gossip. I find it annoying, and bad manners to start rumors about people you hardly know. I am ironically, the subject of gossip a lot. I know full well the extent of its power. Bad yes, but useful to some people. The "Queen bee" thing also exists. I had to endure 3 years of this female manager trying to control me, and claiming she liked me. She got all her drones to do it too. She'd ask me questions all day about myself, so she could twist them later. Trying to guilt trip me. Was not fun.

 

[Tengri]

Gossip is an entertaining sideshow as long as it stays out of earshot of those ears it's indirectly targeting - for reaching them ends the exchange and as an overstated trail of tears. Most of the gossip I overheard in my young life was between hens complaining about their husbands, bemoaning shameful delinquency or extramarital trysts of some younger relative, a peer that has become the object of envy or disgust or admiration, or simply complaints about getting old. Some of the most long-lasting inside jokes in my immediate family are quotes of these shell-shocked emigre oldsters and their colorful descriptions of very mundane events. Taken as a sociological concept, I've read that gossip does have the important function of binding peers in a community, thus reinforcing the status quo of previous generations through the social pressures of shame, guilt, and modeling opinions and behavior of older adults. A social outlet, in the same spirit of oral storytelling, people dramatize their fears, unload their grievances, and bond sympathetically in shared or invented feeling as peers. Worded another way, gossip is self-indulgence with a twist: comorbid with self-pity, with a dash of emotional sharing. So, while gossiping among peers can serve an essential role of binding peers and reinforcing mores i.e. weary, gossiping husbands sharing drinks taken to extreme, isolates and disciplines others through indirect attack. Personally, I have done my fair share of hand-wringing and exasperated sharing with friends or family members about younger siblings or cousins (or about myself, even), but generally avoid it and don't find it overly helpful resolving anything compared to direct conflict (resolution) or face-to-face intervention.

 

[rav3n]

I hate Facebook but this is one of the benefits. In posting info on your wall, it mitigates some gossip since people are hearing it straight from the horse's mouth, rather than the vomit version after a game of telephone.

 

[Lark]

Yep, been burned by those types of people a lot in the past. I used to be a pretty outgoing person, but after dealing with enough games and two-facedness, I became very reserved and extremely selective about who I speak to and what I say.

I remember one particularly embarrassing situation when I was about 20 and had a crush on a female co-worker. I was mentioning her to a different co-worker and asking about her, and I explicitly said not to go repeating my interest to other people, but they proceeded to tell pretty much the entire company. I probably handled it well, outwardly, using self-deprecation and brushing it off, but on the inside, I just wanted to crawl into a hole and die

I've known way more sinister versions of that same sort of thing, real damaging stuff, attempts to really harm people, firs their reputation and then them directly, like their mental health.

Sometimes I've been the target other times I've seen the same people target others in very similar ways. Although, I find people are kind of slow to or simply dont act in ways that could contain or cancel out these types and their sort of gossip.

Like when I meet individuals like this I always think if you can talk me like this, you definitely can talk about me like this. Or if I notice that someone has been mirroring another's speech or mannerisms in order to better endear themselves to them and they have "picked it up", they maybe say something less in character for them but typical of another.

However, a lot of the time when I notice that sort of phoniness or these kinds of games others seem content to play them or think its excusable so long as the main target of the deceptions or games playing are others. Some workplaces can turn totally toxic with it, although I've even known neighbourhoods to go that way. Pure Salem Witch trials style stuff.

 

[Lark]

I hate Facebook but this is one of the benefits. In posting info on your wall, it mitigates some gossip since people are hearing it straight from the horse's mouth, rather than the vomit version after a game of telephone.

This is interesting, I do wonder if social media is like electronic gossip and if it is positive or negative, conditioning, consequences etc. etc.

 

[Mind Maverick]

"Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.†Socrates

I always hated this quote, it's so stupid. We all discuss all of those. And I guess only weak minds analyze human dynamics/behaviors? Lol we're all on this forum for discussing typology — oh wait, that's ideas about people that are based on events…hmm, gee…imagine that…they combine…do they call that stravereak?