you will never guess what i just heard
or, on 'normal gossip' and the importance of community knowledge
Last week, I started listening to Normal Gossip, a podcast where host Kelsey McKinney talks to a guest about their relationship to gossip and then shares with them an anonymous piece of gossip submitted by one of the show’s listeners. It’s a fantastic show. I listened for the entirety of a four-hour drive and audibly gasped more times than I care to admit.
Each episode, Kelsey starts by asking her guest what their relationship is to gossip. People give fairly thoughtful answers: Megan Greenwell talks about being raised to view gossip as a sin; Claire Fallon and Emma Gray talk about gossip in the context of #MeToo and being able to share safety information; and early on, Sam Sanders describes gossip as “a way for the powerless to have power.”
I am wholly in support of gossip both because I am nosy and because I think it’s important. As many of the podcast’s guests point out, gossip is not only entertaining, but also a valuable way that communities share information, enforce communal values, and set social expectations.
Normal Gossip affirms that gossip is everywhere and it has a very concrete role in allowing us to protect the ones we love. This applies especially to vulnerable groups — people who may not have the power to stop mistreatment, but can share stories and hopefully prevent it from happening again. (Interns talk! Women talk! Queer people talk! Black people talk!) Not everybody has the power to correct an injustice when it happens, but most can give a heads up to the next person in their spot.
So why listen to a podcast about gossip about people you don’t even fuckin’ know?
It’s the same principle. The juicy story itself doesn’t give you any new information about your friends, but the gossiping about it does. When you say, “I walked in on my roommate Ron sleeping with our other roommate’s boyfriend. Isn’t that insane?” you also might be saying “I think that infidelity is wrong. Do you also think that is wrong?” And if a friend of yours matched with Ron on Tinder, when you tell them, “Ron slept with our roommate’s boyfriend,” you might also be saying, “Ron is not necessarily a stand up guy. This is important context that I think you should have so you don’t end up in the same situation.”
When it’s about some stranger, though, it is mostly about sharing values. Knowing the way your loved ones think about things helps you understand them and the way they fit into the world. It’s one way to tell you who they are: what information a person thinks is interesting; what a person finds most unforgivable; and what a person expects from the people around them.
If you’re chronically nosy like me, I highly recommend Normal Gossip. Kelsey McKinney does a fantastic job building investment in a seemingly insignificant story, and her aural effortlessness is always magnified by the addition of an equally charismatic guest. Plus, out there in the big wide world, strangers sometimes do some unhinged shit. I mean, gossip-shop local when possible, but sometimes the best shit is imported.
In case you need a place to start (they are stand alone episodes, so you can jump in and out):