Hi! Today we’re chatting about gossip, which I have to admit, I LOVE. To be clear, I make a distinction between shit-talking (not good) and regular gossip, which I see as sharing stories from friends, chatting about human behavior, etc. etc., all with a very empathetic lens. Life is messy! People are flawed! Let’s embrace it!
Plus, on our podcast today, I talk about gossip, celebrities, and awkward moments with my close guy friend, Colby, and my therapist friend, Lina. You can listen above, if you’d like, and here’s the transcript (with special thanks to podcast editor Abby Cerquitella).
If you think about it, most scripted TV shows and movies and novels are basically fictional gossip — like, this happened in someone’s life and here’s what they did and how they felt… Afterward, you talk about the show or book to your friends and ask, what would we have done? How would we have felt?
Gossip is often seen as frivolous, but what is more nuanced and illuminating and profound than chewing over the human condition? What serves as a better tool for understanding ourselves and people around us? What is more validating and freeing than realizing how many different ways there are to live a life?
Also, it’s very fun. :) What do you think?
(Thank you to Abigail Cirquitella for editing the podcast.)
This week, Kaitlyn interviewed Kelsey McKinney, who co-founded the cult-favorite podcast Normal Gossip, which takes funny listener-submitted gossip stories, anonymizes them and tells them back in conversation with special guests. She just wrote a delightful, thought-provoking essay collection about gossip called You Didn’t Hear This From Me. Plus, Kelsey shares six favorite things…
Do you have a favorite Normal Gossip episode? I love all my children equally, but a great gateway episode is the Bunco episode with Lindy West and Meagan Hatcher-Mays — about a group of elderly women who’ve been playing the dice game Bunco together for more than 50 years, and a granddaughter catches one of them cheating. The episode is a delight, start to finish. I love stories about older women, where it’s like, to really understand this drama, we have to go back five decades!
How has your relationship with gossip changed? I grew up in the evangelical church, which takes a clear stance: gossip is a sin, on par with adultery and murder. I was often scolded, as a child, because I was extremely curious. When I was in high school, lots of scandalous things happened in my church, and I realized that the suppression of gossip protected the people in power because it created a dearth of information. That shifted my thinking about gossip and also about the faith tradition I was brought up in.
