How To Shut A Big
Mouth Gone Loose?
(on gossiping and spreading a bad habit)
By M.J. Rahahleh
Gossip is probably one of the most profound habits in our daily life, we just can't get enough of it, and we mostly gossip about nonsense. Who got a bf? Who lost his bf? Who can't get a bf yet? What did that girl do with her hair? What didn't that girl do with her hair? Those are usually the main topics of that waste of time mini chit-chats. Gossip is an epidemic that has spread between gay people as well as straight people, it varies from regular day gossip about our surrounding atmospheres and it widens to the "celebrity gossip" concept with TV shows such as The Insider, TMZ or Inside Edition, and the daily headline is probably: "Britney Spears - oops, I'm pregnant again".
Now the real question is: why do we gossip? Now there's a tough cookie to crack. We usually do that because we have nothing to do or because we don't want to look at whatever flaws we have in ourselves and we try to make ourselves have this false feeling of superiority by simply mocking someone else. When it comes to Celebrity Gossip, people who don't have anything better to do just follow news like how much Nicole Ricci weighs now, what color did Lindsay Lohan dye her hair, which celeb is going to adopt - yet - another child from an improvised country, or whatever Kate Moss is high on these days.
Gossip became our daily bread and wine; we can't neither live with it nor live with out it. We either do it to make our bond stronger with the person in front of us, or just to pass time between lectures. While we enjoy gossiping about this and that and those, we don't like it that much when the subject of gossip is us. Gossip has a devastating effect when some people use it to spread rumors (don't we all do that, intentionally or unintentionally), the rumor spreads faster than a fire in a stack of hay and next thing you know, the alleged tattoo on your butt is the talk of the whole town!
There are guidelines for gossips, a.k.a. "the dos and the don'ts: the guide for harmless gossips", as long as you keep it as superficial as you can, your gossip activity won't affect anyone, and also try to gossip at minimum limits, don't spend too much of your time gossiping, that’s bad. Unless you want to get the reputation of a big mouth rumor monger, and always be careful about whom you share your information/thoughts with. Only a true friend will respect the boundaries of what's important and private for you, if someone you suspect might be a gossiper persists in asking you questions about sensitive information or confidential personal news then ask them why they want to know so much. That might be a sign of a person that wants to know your "private stuff" in order to publish them to the public, or in a worse case, your enemies. The law of reciprocity states that if you give someone something, that they will be obligated to give something back to you of equal value. If you give a gift to someone, they will be inclined to give a gift back. In the case of the gossiper, they will use this universal law to their advantage by offering a piece of personal information (usually fake) to you with the hopes that you will lower your guard and give them the information that they want. Don’t be tricked into giving up information just because they did.
One of your best tools to disarm the gossiper is to ask a lot of detailed questions regarding the rumors that they are spreading. Remember that the gossiper usually fabricates or embellishes the small amount of information that they overhear and they usually lack the concrete evidence to support their claims. You can usually dissolve their rumor fairly quickly by probing their rumor with detailed questions.
A gossiper thrives on the attention generated from their rumor or gossip, so it’s important that you don’t become part of the problem yourself. Know how to distinguish information that is purposeful versus information that is obviously gossip and don’t fuel the gossiper by giving an ounce of attention to that meaningless desperate housewives’-like gossip!
TV Show Drama: On Gossip Girl
While Serena is caught it up in a rumor that she’s pregnant from Dan which is not really true, when she was seen buying home pregnancy tests for Blair. Gossip starts to fly around, her little brother Eric confronts her about it (down, right), while Blair (<left) is secretly, but already swamped by her hidden fears that she would be pregnant, and not knowing who is the father, because she’s already in a relationship with Nate while fooling around with Chuck, whom both don’t know about, not about the affair nor about the pregnancy fear she’s in!!!!