JOIN USGunning for gossip
I guess we ordinary folks will never feature in the gossip columns for the simple reason that our deeds, or rather misdeeds, wouldn’t interest anyone as much as a well-known personality’s would. Gossip columns worldwide are the exclusive preserve of celebrities and socialites whose shenanigans, quite naturally, make a far more interesting copy than an ordinary mortal’s.
To what extent the gossip columnist (or for that matter any gossip) conveys the truth is anyone’s guess. But, there’s nothing that can’t be made worse by telling or retelling, is well-known. In fact, few can resist the temptation to spice up gossip before sharing it. In the pro-cess, there’s inevitable distortion since the underlying aim is to titillate – even at the cost of the subject’s reputation.
“Gossip is what no one claims to like,” declared novelist Joseph Conrad, “but everybody enjoys.” Nothing indeed could be truer, judging by how eagerly gossip is circulated and lapped up. It’s equally true that people dislike gossip only when it concerns them – not otherwise!
In our town, there was a grandmother who loved nothing better than to pour generous dollops of social sewage into the ears of those who cared to listen – and there were many, indeed. None was spared: she seemed to know the spicy details of what everyone was up to. In particular, she targeted a pretty lass – who had apparently fallen foul of her – maligning the girl and her boyfriend. There was no let-up in the old lady’s malicious gossip about the duo until one fine day she discovered, to her utter mortification, that the girl’s boyfriend was none other than one of her own grandsons!
Another gossip’s acerbic tongue was stilled only after she found, quite by chance, that her target was in fact the benefactor who was anonymously financing the rehabilitation of her physically disabled son. It was a typical case of biting the hand that helps.
Malice or spitefulness sometimes blinds us to reality. Perhaps, it was such scandalmongers that prompted American humorist Frank Hubbard to remark, “There isn’t much to see in little towns but what you hear makes up for it.”
To be the subject of unfair or vicious gossip is, of course, no laughing matter as any victim knows, since it can seriously erode one’s reputation or character. Gossip, per se, is usually harmless but when it degenerates into slander as it often does, it becomes a weapon for the unscrupulous.
Yet, gossips are unavoidably part and parcel of society, living off the chat of the land as it were – pun intended. Gossip is generally the pastime of the idle who have nothing better to do. Perhaps, the best way to counter this social evil is that outlined by Rudyard Kipling who sagaciously observed, “I always prefer to believe the best of everybody. It saves so much trouble.”