America is a nation obsessed with other people’s lives. A visitor glancing at our magazine and newspaper racks or flipping through TV channels immediately knows where our priorities lie, and it’s not with dissecting world politics. Instead, we hunt for news about the latest troubled starlet and watch other people’s lives unfold via reality TV shows.
Our fixation on getting all the celebrity dirt isn’t that surprising. After all, we learn from an early age not only to participate in, but also to enjoy, gossiping. Though talking about others is often labeled superficial and sometimes even cruel, it clearly serves an important social function. Instead of writing it off as idle talk, perhaps we should figure out what drives us to gossip in the first place.
Blame the Cavemen
Gossiping isn’t a new trend; its roots go all the way back to our cavemen predecessors. Back then, people lived in small communities and almost never came across people outside of their groups, at least not for very long. So everyone relied on everyone else in the inner circle for survival, which made it all the more important to know who did what jobs best, who could be counted on, and so forth.
Since there wasn’t an unlimited amount of resources, details about people became essential for competitive purposes as well. Our ancestors learned quickly that forging alliances and learning who was extraneous to the group was important for success. And as anyone who’s spent time in an office, playground, or other confined space with many people will tell you, a surefire bonding method (and sometimes even a way to increase productivity) is sharing a conversation about a mutual member of the group.
A Way to Fit In
Gossiping has a bad reputation, but there’s a reason it’s stuck around for so long. It used to be a literal “survival of the fittest” situation, but now it’s about social acceptance. When one person feels comfortable enough with another person to gossip, it sends a message that there’s trust and camaraderie between the two. By giving them something they can both relate to, it creates a bond that can extend into facets of life beyond what their coworker wore the other day or why their friend broke up with her boyfriend.
