Where I grew up everyone knew everyone and the troubles of one family were the troubles of the community. We all shared news about each other and pitched in to help whenever another family had a need (illness, injury, death, job loss, harvest time, etc). This network also shared good news and was the way that details about social events were shared that were open to all (church picnics, 4th of July parades, pancake fundraisers, etc) both before and after they occurred. None of this was considered “gossip”. Mean-spirited and/or judgmental discussions with unclear basis in truth were “gossip”. It seems that some define this differently. What do you think?
I think it’s saying something about someone else that you wouldn’t say if they were in the room.
I read a fascinating research paper many years ago that posited that many of the taboos on gossip were created by men to protect their forays into infidelity. I know that there was a study of some African village where AIDS transmission was reduced by actively encouraging gossip, something the village elders had tried to forbid.
Our Rabbi really stuck his foot in it when he gave a sermon decrying gossip and including in that definition any discussion at all about other people amd used as examples all the conversation he heard at the school pickup line. It was essentially a veiled screed about women talking to each other. The women of our very liberal congregation told him it was mysoginistic and inappropriate He had to issue an apology the next week.
Great definition, @bjkmom.
I was always taught that gossip is information that doesn’t reflect the target in a positive light. As I’ve gotten older, my definition has expanded to include information that the person wouldn’t necessarily want others to know, even if it wouldn’t make them look bad to normal people. Things like that include that someone’s child is gay, when they have not acknowledged it, that a friend is under treatment for a disease that they haven’t disclosed or that someone was cheated on when they would prefer to keep it fairly quiet. I have been the recipient of that type of information. I would consider sharing it with anyone else gossip.
@maya54 - the Hebrew school pickup line was definitely a hot bed of “Loshen hora” when my kids attended.
Yes defining it as something you wouldn’t say if the person was in the room is a good definition. And I would add the nuance of something negative about someone that somebody else really does not need to know.
Gossip is a real pet peeve of mine and I think some of the more vicious stuff borders on actual slander. It can do a lot of damage to a person’s reputation especially in small communities. And so much of it is based on flimsy facts and no real knowledge of the actual situation. And some of it is just made up by someone who might not like someone else.
Discussing anything negative with someone who can’t help solve the problem.
For me, something has to be detrimental to be considered gossip. If something is positive and I haven’t been told to keep it on the DL, I’ll share away. Negative stuff is kept to myself.
Theres an episode of This American Life that discusses AIDS in Malawi and gossip. A description :
“This week, Sarah Koenig hosts, as we tackle the thing we all hate to love: Gossip. That’s right; we’ve got rumor, we’ve got innuendo, and we’ve got a story of gossipers gone pro. Sarah even makes a compelling case that in some places, gossip could very well be saving lives. But you didn’t hear it from us.”
goosip…is fun…unless it is about me…than it is wrong!!
Gossip is spreading information about other people without their permission.
When I hear gossip I feel it is saying something with a negative feeling. It is the tone of the words that also matters.
It is discrediting someone and I really don’t want to hear it or participate in it.
If I do hear it I smile and nod because I may not agree with what is said and I don’t want to contribute to it.
Having had my own share of difficulties in life I try to understand what that person maybe going through and be compassionate towards that person.
Sometimes I feel is someone gossiping because they are jealous of that person. For example a friend of ours daughter recently got accepted into medical school. I was surprised to see her closest friends talk in a negative way behind her back. I am not really close to this family but I was genuinely happy to hear the good news because I share in peoples happiness. To hear someone say “she barely got in” what does that mean? I take it as you are not genuinely happy for someone else’s success.
When I hear gossip the first thing I think what must they be saying behind my back about me. If they are gossiping about family or friends then I definitely am not immune to it.
I used to take off work early one or twice a week to chat with the other parents who met at the playground after school. I was networking or better yet, building social capital. I think of gossiping as discussing all kinds of personal details about others and only some gossip is bad (the info that others might not want spread and doesn’t benefit others.). But some personal details, like which middle schoolers were involved with drugs and which parents seemed a bit too uninvolved in supervising their kids are examples of gossip that can be beneficial like the infidelity/AIDS examples cited above.
The problem with some of this so-called “beneficial” gossip is that often the information is absolutely false.
My parents and I were the victims of this type of gossip among the parents at my Catholic K-8 school. There were rumors that I was sexually active in middle school and that my parents let me run wild. Both patently false but believable enough and spread enough that the Priest made us come in for a type of intervention at the threat of kicking me out of the school.
My parents’ mantra echoes bjk’s definition: “If you can’t say it to their face, you shouldn’t say it at all.”
First, I’d like to vote in support of the statement that what should be avoided is things we would not say in a conversation with the person being discussed. It is a good guideline, IMO.
But I also want to play “devil’s advocate” on the side of some aspects of what is commonly considered gossip. I have learned a lot from true experiences of “the soap opera of ife.” One instance I recall is from many years ago, when a kid of mine, a junior in high school, was home on a Saturday night watching a movie in the family room with her father and me. I was feeling bad that this kid (an introvert) was typically home hanging out with us parents rather than out socializing with friends. (Of course I said nothing of this to the kid.)
The next day I learned (via the grapevine but soon widely covered in the press) that someone in my child’s grade at her high school had died the previous day as a result of a car accident she had due to substance abuse at a get-together that Saturday. This was someone whose family we knew from elementary school and who we never thought would be involved in something like that – the classic “good kid” from a “solid” family.
The heartbreak of her parents pierced me – as well as the foolishness of my own stupid thoughts on the previous evening. I learned that some concerns are petty and that we never know the challenges others may be facing or may eventually face, or the burdens they may bear. Never assume.
“There but for the grace of God” (or fate, happenstance, etc.) go I.
Of course this incident was major news in our area, and fortunately the high school put together a program for the entire student body to address the issues. For me, there were many lessons. Some things that happen to other people can give me food for thought. We can hope to learn from not only our own experiences, but also those of others.
Perhaps this is justification of gossip, but it is what I think.
For me it’s “anything your wouldn’t want overheard by the person you’re talking about.”
There have been times when I’ve been the topic of discussion re. something I wouldn’t necessarily want discussed in front of me but which I didn’t mind other people discussing among themselves. An example would be when I was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to undergo chemotherapy. I didn’t really want to have to talk about it all the time but I didn’t mind when people spread the news of my illness once I’d gone public with the information. It was actually helpful because a lot of those people pitched in to help my family.
Of course if people had talked about it before I’d had a chance to tell my family or had speculated on my survival prospects I would have considered that gossip and I would have been upset.
Thanks to all for your definitions. I ask because of a recent incident where a friend ( and parent of my DS16’s HS classmate) was very direct in asking my DS about another classmate. I thought her questions were encouraging my DS to gossip about his friend. He handled it great and only shared what meets my own, and many of your, definition of NOT gossip, but I still felt the need to discuss it with him when we got home so that he would know it was okay to deflect such questions even when they come from a trusted grownup. This friend has shared info with me about others in the past that made me uncomfortable so I have learned not to share too much.
Often a good response is “Perhaps you should ask [him/her] about that.”
For some reason I cannot edit…,
Anyway, I felt like I may not have done the greatest job of defining “gossip” for my son since some where I live now use more of a definition like was mentioned above of “anything you say about someone else” – even when the story being relayed includes yourself and is factual rather than judgmental. Also, someone here used CC as an example of where “people just gossip about other people’s kids”. That has not been my impression of the vast majority of what goes on here even though it is anonymous.
Gossip is something that is interesting even if it isn’t true.