Why celebrity gossip is a sport we should all practise seriously

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/29/celebrity-gossip

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We tend to disapprove of gossip, perhaps because we fear being slurred by others behind our back. Gossip today is generally assumed to be a female occupation, and is often belittled by males. Men may be more likely to be alexithymic and may not understand the nuance of gossip, meaning they dismiss it as meaningless rather than admit a lack of understanding. But if we go back to the etymology of the word, we can see what gossip is really about – a person related to one in God. In secular terms we may interpret this as a person with whom we have a bond, and that’s what gossip is really for. It is for bonding and, it is most certainly for both genders.

In Pride and Prejudice, Mr Bennet says: “But, Lizzie, you look as if you did not enjoy it. You are not going to be missish, I hope, and pretend to be affronted at an idle report. For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?” Jane Austen’s wry character was, of course, a lover of the ironic. He did believe, I am sure, that there was more to our existence than making sport for our neighbours, but he also knew that gossip was an important part of life and a glue that helps to bond us. Humans are pack animals: we do not thrive without attachment to others. We need a tribe, and gossip is an important ingredient in holding that tribe together.

These days the people making the most sport for us are celebrities, but we don’t like to admit it. In a recent paper published in the Journal of Social Neuroscience, scientists outlined how they scanned people’s brains to see how they reacted to different types of gossip. Although participants in the study did not report being particularly happy upon hearing negative gossip about celebrities, the significantly enhanced neural activity in the reward system of the brain suggested that they were indeed amused.

They were also scanned when they completed a questionnaire; and when they complied with expected social norms rather than what they really felt, the scan showed increased activity in the prefrontal executive control network. LOL.

By sticking in a LOL there, I am trying to bond with you at the expense of the participants of that study. I don’t feel too badly about it as the participants cannot be identified, I’m telling myself they won’t read this, and I want to believe that they won’t be wounded if we do have a laugh at their expense because we discovered that their attempt at the moral high ground was foiled.

We find the spectacle of others toppling off their pedestals comforting. We view celebs falling from grace as though they were a rival within our own tribe – because in evolutionary terms we are still very close to a time when we only lived in small groups. Gossiping or reading gossip about celebrities looks the same in the scanner as if we were talking about people we know. The disapproval we may feel for someone who we feel over-indulges in gossiping about other people is nowhere to be found when we find ourselves in possession of a juicy morsel of information about someone we know. The evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar claims that two-thirds of our conversations are about social topics – people – and the remaining third about music, sport and politics. He suggests that social information is so important that it is a primary function of language.

Gossip is not just for bonding with one person at the expense of another, it is also how we learn about how we are doing in comparison with other people, and what social norms and boundaries are expected of us. Gossip is also about being informed, and learning more of the not unimportant business of how to live is a lifelong quest. Now when you pick holes in my arguments about gossip and generally criticise my prose, what you are doing is raising your social standing at my expense. But providing you with such sport is what I, and you, are for. Enjoy.