Speaker 1: M Hey everybody, it's Saturday, and I've got to tell
Speaker 1: you I heard something about Jerry the other day that
Speaker 1: I don't know if I should say, but if you
Speaker 1: promise not to tell anyone, I will tell you right now.
Speaker 1: She is pretty great. That's called bad gossip. No one
Speaker 1: wants to hear gossip like that. The only good gossip
Speaker 1: is maybe to say that Jerry is not great for
Speaker 1: a list of reasons. But I'm not going to do
Speaker 1: that because Jerry is great. But you could listen to
Speaker 1: this episode from December, a Christmas episode. It's all about
Speaker 1: gossip and it's called How Gossip Works. Welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: you should know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's
Speaker 1: Charles w Chuck Bryant and uh, it's just two of
Speaker 1: us again. Man, not getting any easier. This is just
Speaker 1: let's getting old, it is, man. We need Jerry back.
Speaker 1: Where are you, Jerry? Where did you go? I selfish?
Speaker 1: Jerry wants to be at home with her baby. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we all went to shopping at Kmart and she wandered
Speaker 1: off and we haven't seen her since. We all want
Speaker 1: to be at home with Jerry's baby. Sure, that's a
Speaker 1: cute baby, but we can't be you know the old
Speaker 1: joke that Jerry could be replaced with a those dipping
Speaker 1: birds just to hit record. We were just kidding. It's
Speaker 1: that's happening. It is true, maybe not the post production stuff,
Speaker 1: but definitely the recording thing. Clearly takes a finger to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: you guys are rolling. Yeah, we cannot stop griping about
Speaker 1: this time. I know it's just weird. You know, when
Speaker 1: a threesome becomes to twosome, things get awkward. Yeah, I try,
Speaker 1: it becomes a diade, or when it twosome becomes a
Speaker 1: threesome that gets super awkward. Or I mean really, anytime
Speaker 1: you're moving people in and out of some sort of dynamics,
Speaker 1: it can be weird. Transition could be rough, I think
Speaker 1: is the that's what you put on the T shirt. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: al right, the transition is rough anytime you're moving people
Speaker 1: in and out of a dynamic. Ready, yes, didn't know
Speaker 1: you say that already. Yeah we're recording, Chuck, I have
Speaker 1: something for you. Right. I am not much of a
Speaker 1: gossip at all. I just don't do it. But do
Speaker 1: you know who does Jerry a lot, and she's really vicious.
Speaker 1: I know she's not here right now, but just between
Speaker 1: the two of us, I don't gossip. Jerry does, and
Speaker 1: you should really watch out for her. I heard that
Speaker 1: she gossips. I'm not saying that, but I just heard that.
Speaker 1: I got you, well, I've seen her do it. She's
Speaker 1: gossip to me because she finds me very important and
Speaker 1: likes to confide to me. But it's just so vicious.
Speaker 1: So we just gossiped. We did. That was play acting.
Speaker 1: The ironic thing was that I was gossiping about how
Speaker 1: I don't gossip. That that came through. Huh, everybody gossips, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess so. I mean, apparently people gossip way more
Speaker 1: than they realize. But I think you're I think gossip
Speaker 1: is a normal thing. It has such a bad connotation
Speaker 1: though that people say, like, I don't gossip, I'm not
Speaker 1: a gossip but liars. Technically, not necessarily even liars. I
Speaker 1: think it also as far as like linguists and psychologists
Speaker 1: are concerned, it comes from a misunderstanding of what gossip,
Speaker 1: what constitutes gossip. That's right, Like, at its basic, barest,
Speaker 1: bare bottomed element, gossip is simply too, or it can
Speaker 1: be more but a couple of people speaking about a
Speaker 1: third person's business while the third person isn't there. There's
Speaker 1: another person who's being talked about who isn't there. It
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean you're talking about how they're just just
Speaker 1: what allows you parents. They are sure spending baby shoe
Speaker 1: money on gambling rather than gambling in order to get
Speaker 1: more shoes. That's bad parenting right there. There's all sorts
Speaker 1: of stuff you can say, but you could also say, actually,
Speaker 1: that guy is a great dude. He spends all of
Speaker 1: his money on nothing but baby shoes. That's gossip. It
Speaker 1: is gossip, and it's not necessarily harmful. It's in this
Speaker 1: case you're you're helping someone else's social status in the
Speaker 1: other people's eyes. That's still gossip. Yeah, I think, um,
Speaker 1: what's this tracy of stuff you missed in history class?
Speaker 1: Wrote this one? That is true? She's always thorough and
Speaker 1: uh she included in here something I thought was pretty
Speaker 1: pertinent gossip v rumor Yeah. Uh, And there are differences
Speaker 1: in Um, well, I say there's differences, but if you
Speaker 1: ask professionals who study this, and there are weirdos who
Speaker 1: do that Um, they will say sometimes now it's the
Speaker 1: same thing. Or a rumor is just a type of gossip. Uh,
Speaker 1: here's some other distinguishing factors. Gossip is based in fact,
Speaker 1: rumors are based in hypotheses. Um, I don't know about
Speaker 1: that one. That makes sense to me because it kind
Speaker 1: of ties in with the last one. Yeah, gossip is
Speaker 1: a tool for maintaining social order, which we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about at length. Rumor is a tool for explaining things
Speaker 1: that people do not understand. I'm not sure I get
Speaker 1: that one. Like there's garbage raining from the sky, it's
Speaker 1: the government, that's a rumor, okay. Whereas if you're like
Speaker 1: Charles is up on the roof again dumping his garbage
Speaker 1: out on the street's technically so yeah, or that's just
Speaker 1: laying it out there, you know. Yeah true. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then finally, gossip or late something people believe has happened,
Speaker 1: but rumor expresses something people hope or fear will happen.
Speaker 1: So I have my own hypothesis of the distinction between
Speaker 1: rumor and gossip. It's here, Uh, rumor is uncurated gossip rumors.
Speaker 1: Any dude walking down the street, you can be like,
Speaker 1: there's garbage falling from this guy and it's the government.
Speaker 1: There's no bond that's formed. There's no requirement of a bond,
Speaker 1: whereas gossip requires some sort of connection, or you're forming
Speaker 1: a connection from the gossip. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Rumbor is just for anybody. Gossip is between confidence to
Speaker 1: an extent. Yeah, and Tracy points that out too, And
Speaker 1: that is why supposedly celebrity gossip isn't qualified, doesn't qualify
Speaker 1: as gossip because it's a third party that doesn't know
Speaker 1: the others in general, unless it's you know, Jennifer Ranison,
Speaker 1: it's talking smack about Angelina. No, she would never do that.
Speaker 1: Oh really, No, she loves courting cocks. They're still friends.
Speaker 1: Huh sure. Why doesn't she ever have around cougar Town?
Speaker 1: Then I think she was on cougar Town? Well I
Speaker 1: stayed corrected, although I have no idea because I've never
Speaker 1: seen cougar down. Did you hear about what happened when
Speaker 1: she was on cougar Town? I heard she washed her
Speaker 1: hair and heavy and water. That's Shannon Doherty? Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: Is that a rumor? Gossip? I don't know, because we
Speaker 1: don't know Shannon dherty. Uh. And then there are some
Speaker 1: other stipulations that researchers point out for gossip that I
Speaker 1: also take issue with. Some of these. Um, the conversation
Speaker 1: takes place in private usually the case, yeah, if not
Speaker 1: like actual private depends on what private means. You you,
Speaker 1: everybody's got the shoulders turn. There's like a creation of
Speaker 1: a private situation. Yeah, I got you. Uh. People are
Speaker 1: saying it as if it were fact, even though it's
Speaker 1: not confirmed. That's definitely true. Yeah, but that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: the case. That's I take issue with that one. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like you were saying, like I heard, but
Speaker 1: I haven't checked it out to take it with a
Speaker 1: grain of salt. But get this yeah man uh people, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we already talked about that knowing each other. And then
Speaker 1: the body language and tone, uh suggests a moral judgment.
Speaker 1: That's a big one, you know, like when people use
Speaker 1: this tone. But again, that's malicious gossip. Typically there's such
Speaker 1: a thing, So this is it should be said. Tracy
Speaker 1: doesn't really say it in this Um. I think she
Speaker 1: was drinking while she was writing this one. That's what
Speaker 1: I heard. Um, she didn't lay out that there's really
Speaker 1: two types of gossip. One is malicious gossip. That's the
Speaker 1: type of gossip people think about when they hear the
Speaker 1: word gossip. But the other type, the far more are
Speaker 1: apparently far more prevalent type, is um regular gossip. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's some weird, unsubstantiated stat here that only that five
Speaker 1: was malicious, Yeah among most gossip. Yeah, how in the
Speaker 1: world did they pull that out of their key start?
Speaker 1: Here's that's a great question. So they are linguists, historians, uh, anthropologists, psychologists,
Speaker 1: people who started studying gossip for a very long time.
Speaker 1: Everyone is aware of gossip, but they're like, it's just noise.
Speaker 1: It's not to be studied, it's to be ignored. And
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, there's this really great article
Speaker 1: in The Atlantic that talked about gossip and how it
Speaker 1: was viewed um and specifically, there was this thing in
Speaker 1: sixteenth and seventeenth century England they didn't like it, called
Speaker 1: the scolds bridle. And if you want to see what
Speaker 1: a scolds bridle is, you should check that out online,
Speaker 1: because there are actual such things. But they're basically iron
Speaker 1: masks with like points sticking into the The woman who
Speaker 1: was accused of gossip's mouth usually a woman and she
Speaker 1: would just have to wear that and be publicly humiliated.
Speaker 1: A lot of them had like a leash leading from them.
Speaker 1: So I guess the gossip or the scold is what
Speaker 1: they used to call, could be paraded around town, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and also get the feeling that a lot of women
Speaker 1: were probably made to wear those who just talked too much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would I have the same the same impression because
Speaker 1: of the time period of So that's how people typically
Speaker 1: viewed gossip. It was something to be stamped out. It
Speaker 1: was something that was um very undesirable, and academia treated
Speaker 1: it the same way. Then World War two came around
Speaker 1: and I think the government saw that there was some
Speaker 1: real harm that could be done with gossip, with rumors,
Speaker 1: and they wanted to start to understand that. So that
Speaker 1: kind of led to the basis of academia investigating what
Speaker 1: gossip was, what rumors are, and then um, over time
Speaker 1: organizations got in on the act because there came this
Speaker 1: idea you that if the rumor mill or the gossip
Speaker 1: mill in your office was really going over time, you
Speaker 1: needed to stamp that out. True. They've found the opposite
Speaker 1: is actually true. Yeah, they found it can do a
Speaker 1: lot in a workplace to keep people in line, Uh,
Speaker 1: either by scaring them in line or what it What
Speaker 1: it seems like a lot of gossip does in that
Speaker 1: kind of environment, is it establishes like the norms and
Speaker 1: the culture is expected out of the bosses. That's like
Speaker 1: one low level that's like low level background gossip if
Speaker 1: it's peaking and really working over time. You, from what
Speaker 1: I understand, you're not supposed to attack the gossips. What
Speaker 1: you're supposed to do is be more transparent at the top,
Speaker 1: and then people don't have reason to gossip. So it's
Speaker 1: not It doesn't mean that you have a lot of
Speaker 1: gossips at your place. That's a normal human situation. As
Speaker 1: we'll see, it means that your managers and the people
Speaker 1: who are running the show aren't being open enough for
Speaker 1: the the hoi polois tastes, right, see what I mean? Yeah,
Speaker 1: good point, And that was a big thing that came
Speaker 1: out of study it. But to answer your question, I'm
Speaker 1: about to finish, they study it by eavesdropping on like
Speaker 1: people who are talking in cafeterious. That's how about the
Speaker 1: only way you can Yeah, because it's so spontaneous and
Speaker 1: it's largely unconscious. Yeah, unless it's you know, just some
Speaker 1: dumb pole where you're asking people about gossip and self
Speaker 1: reporting poles like that. I don't put a lot of
Speaker 1: stock in you know, Well, actually they're funny to look at.
Speaker 1: There's one that found that about we spend about three
Speaker 1: quarters of our time gossiping apparently. Yeah, and that's in
Speaker 1: the broadest sense of the definition, right, not necessarily malicious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because about five percent of that supposed lyst malicious. But
Speaker 1: people self report gossiping about they they spend about thirty
Speaker 1: percent of their time. So rather than people are like, oh,
Speaker 1: only gossip, yea, and all that comes from eavesdropping on
Speaker 1: people and then asking them afterwards whether they gossip. Tracy
Speaker 1: points out rightfully so that most world religions have always
Speaker 1: said gossip is a bad thing. Uh, include in the
Speaker 1: Christian Bible. Uh in Leviticus, Thou'll shalt not go up
Speaker 1: and down as a talebearer among thy people. Oh that
Speaker 1: was good. By the way, I wanna echo the kudos
Speaker 1: that have wrong throughout social media, applauding your scary spider
Speaker 1: growing redneck man. In the Halloween episode, it was cleardis
Speaker 1: a slack jold yokel sort of and my friend Big John, well,
Speaker 1: it was good. It was a mashup. I appreciate that
Speaker 1: it was Big John in New York. No, he's in
Speaker 1: he's in Atlanta. Okay. Um. I actually thought your your
Speaker 1: vomit take was the funniest part of the whole thing,
Speaker 1: the gag, thank you, thank you. Uh. Jewish tour always
Speaker 1: also says so in Buddhism. We've talked about Buddhism before
Speaker 1: the eight full Path to Enlightenment. No place for gossip there,
Speaker 1: my friend, No way, not if you want to become
Speaker 1: one with the universe, no gossiping. And like like I
Speaker 1: said earlier too, it's not just the religious hypes that
Speaker 1: are against it. People. And remember the business world kind
Speaker 1: of started looking in on this, and they're like, don't
Speaker 1: gossip if you want to be a good person, don't
Speaker 1: gossip and spreading unless you're spreading a gossip rumor that
Speaker 1: we want you to spread. Right, that's the official company line. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then there's this dude, Robin Dunbar, who wrote a
Speaker 1: book called Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language. And
Speaker 1: I looked into this guy. He he really goes for it.
Speaker 1: He says that gossip is the whole reason that we
Speaker 1: have language, and it evolved from primates grooming each other
Speaker 1: and that took so much time to groom one another
Speaker 1: and it wasn't efficient. That language was created in order
Speaker 1: to not have to groom one another, and so you
Speaker 1: would vocal groom, that's what he called it. So this
Speaker 1: kind of a big deal. Let's let's take a break
Speaker 1: for a second because we're pretty deep into this, and
Speaker 1: we'll talk about Dunbar and his mad ideas after this.
Speaker 1: All right, Dunbar, Dunbar can't put them off any longer,
Speaker 1: Robin Dunbar. Yeah, that's a pretty out there theory. I
Speaker 1: think like Dunbar is saying, we developed language so we
Speaker 1: could gossip in in essence. Yeah, the tide of grooming
Speaker 1: is where he loses me a bit, and vocal grooming,
Speaker 1: I'm just he says basically it was a more efficient
Speaker 1: way to uh service your allies rather than grooming one another. Right,
Speaker 1: So I think what he's saying is that when you
Speaker 1: win a primate grooms another primate, it's an act of
Speaker 1: um kindness. It's saying like I'm doing something nice for you.
Speaker 1: It gives the other primate who's being groomed, an opportunity
Speaker 1: to reciprocate, INSUREM and even stronger bond. Right, scratch my back.
Speaker 1: But it takes a little while to do all this
Speaker 1: stuff because you're actually going through the act of grooming,
Speaker 1: whereas if you just gossip about somebody, Um, you can
Speaker 1: do a lot of that same stuff, but just by talking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I don't get what it has to do with
Speaker 1: picking knits out of fur. It's it's I think what
Speaker 1: he's saying is it's it developed out of that. It
Speaker 1: serves a lot of the same purposes. Plus also it's
Speaker 1: entirely possible that gossip began around the time or I
Speaker 1: guess during grooming sessions. Think about it, If you're just
Speaker 1: sitting there picking knits out of somebody, are you just
Speaker 1: gonna sit there silently not chat start chatting? How how
Speaker 1: easy is it going to be to lead to tuck
Speaker 1: tuck and what he did after he ate that for minute? Apple, Sure,
Speaker 1: it's like the barbershop or the beauty shop, right kind of. Um,
Speaker 1: there are some different roles though that it does play
Speaker 1: in social interactions where I guess the grooming thing comes
Speaker 1: into play. Um, entertaining one another, like you said, influence
Speaker 1: on one another. That's a big one. Um. Exchanging information,
Speaker 1: that's important, uh. And one of the biggest ones is
Speaker 1: learning from mistakes that UH linguists point out is a
Speaker 1: really big part of gossip, or a part of positive gossip,
Speaker 1: and that there's oftentimes a moral lesson attached to it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you don't want this to happen to you, right, No, exactly,
Speaker 1: and it kind of um in that respect. It gets
Speaker 1: across somebody who's perhaps a little more established in a group,
Speaker 1: maybe an older person, like ingratiate yourself, right, But but
Speaker 1: it's also saying, like I'm a part of this group.
Speaker 1: You're a little newer than I am. Let me tell
Speaker 1: you the story about what this guy did when he
Speaker 1: transgressed against the group and bad things befell him. Like
Speaker 1: you said, don't let this happen to you. Don't transgress
Speaker 1: the group's boundaries, right, And that's important if you get
Speaker 1: if you're like a new hire, they say, a lot
Speaker 1: of gossip flies, uh. Like I remember the movie Be Big,
Speaker 1: Remember when Tom Hanks gets hired. Like the very first
Speaker 1: thing that happens is John Lovitts comes over and starts
Speaker 1: talking about all the gossip of everyone in the office.
Speaker 1: I don't remember that part. Oh yeah, he talks about
Speaker 1: like this lady is easy and this guy's a jerk,
Speaker 1: and it's just pretty common. I think when you get
Speaker 1: a new job, there's always someone in there that's like
Speaker 1: And what they're doing, though, is they're not just it's
Speaker 1: not purely they're trying to help themselves. It's socialization. It's
Speaker 1: in dr nature. Oh that's not what I thought you
Speaker 1: were gonna say. No, Like, I think they're trying to
Speaker 1: be like, well here's a new ally I can get right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so let me let me you know. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's they're also it's reciprocal, I guess to a certain degree. Yeah,
Speaker 1: both people are getting something out of it. But I mean,
Speaker 1: you make a good point. The person who is doing
Speaker 1: the gossiping, especially in that situation, is setting themselves up
Speaker 1: as a like a wise older sage or advisor, like
Speaker 1: I know this place. You come to me if you
Speaker 1: want some information. Well you'll find though over the years,
Speaker 1: is that you should. The first person who comes up
Speaker 1: and starts gossiping to you about how the office works
Speaker 1: is usually also the most disliked. Yeah, you know, that's
Speaker 1: why they cast John Lovett. He's great for that. That
Speaker 1: or the dude with forehead the size of a dinner
Speaker 1: plate who was in all the eighties movies as that character?
Speaker 1: Was he the jerkin big I don't know, is the
Speaker 1: dad from Home Alone? No? No, no, this is um
Speaker 1: the coked up sidekick from the eighties with the huge forehead.
Speaker 1: He was in About You. He was the sidekicking mad
Speaker 1: about you. Oh that guy? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, same
Speaker 1: same function. Yeah, he's uh. He's in that show now,
Speaker 1: ah with Joey Tribbiani. It's called Joey, Melissa and Joey. No,
Speaker 1: he's on the episodes. Yeah, yeah, he's on episodes too, Okay, great.
Speaker 1: Does he play himself now? He plays a jerk? Um
Speaker 1: uh TV executive perfect, exactly. I love that guy that.
Speaker 1: He's such a good actor. No, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But he always plays that part. He's definitely he's got
Speaker 1: that part down. You're right, he's not a romantic lead. Um.
Speaker 1: A lot of times. The feeling of superiority is another
Speaker 1: big part of gossip, like I would never do this um.
Speaker 1: And Tracy also points out the old schaden freuda, which
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite words. It's a good word
Speaker 1: and one of my least favorite things. That's you must
Speaker 1: be very ambivalent about that word. What do you mean? Well,
Speaker 1: if you love it but you also hate what it means, well,
Speaker 1: let's got to tear you up inside. Well. I just
Speaker 1: don't like someone delighting in someone else's misfortune unless it's
Speaker 1: a bad person. Yeah, Like if the Jimmy John's guy
Speaker 1: like shot his toe off on a big game hunt.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he's a big game hunter. I would probably
Speaker 1: think that was kind of you know, just as I
Speaker 1: think that's acceptable shot in freuda, Okay, especially if it
Speaker 1: was just a relatively minor injury. You know, you go
Speaker 1: shod in. Yeah, you say shaden shod and frauda. That's
Speaker 1: how I say it, So, Chuck, kind of what a
Speaker 1: couple of Like we've were kind of dancing back and
Speaker 1: forth across this line, like going to the office, setting
Speaker 1: up the first day and having somebody come over and
Speaker 1: tell you how the things work. Yes, there might be
Speaker 1: a little bit of malicious gossip in there, but for
Speaker 1: the most part, that's not bad gossip. That's neutral gossip, right,
Speaker 1: But putting someone else down or talking about how how
Speaker 1: much superior you are by not you would never do
Speaker 1: what they did. That's definitely the malicious variety. And there's
Speaker 1: an idea that if gossip evolved like um, Robin yeah, like,
Speaker 1: like Robin Leach says in his post Rich and Famous
Speaker 1: Career he became an anthropologist, you know, Um, Robin Leach
Speaker 1: says that if if language evolved as a means of gossiping,
Speaker 1: the guy takes it further by saying, Um, the reason gossip,
Speaker 1: of the reason we needed that in the first place
Speaker 1: was because we grew out of these little hunter gatherer
Speaker 1: bands of like fifteen people, and as our societies grew
Speaker 1: larger and larger, we weren't as able to be able
Speaker 1: to keep tabs personally on others in this group that's
Speaker 1: getting bigger and bigger, So you don't know who to trust.
Speaker 1: You know, if I'm going to leave my crops to
Speaker 1: somebody while I go on a walk about or something,
Speaker 1: I need to make sure that all my crops are
Speaker 1: going to be there when I get back, you know,
Speaker 1: but I don't really know this guy. Gossiping serves that function.
Speaker 1: It's it's like a stand in for being able to
Speaker 1: keep tabs on everybody else in the society, because when
Speaker 1: you gossip with somebody, you're sharing a trust, a bond
Speaker 1: that they're not going to use that information against you
Speaker 1: that you shared with them. And um, so there's a
Speaker 1: there's a definite element of trust to it. And when
Speaker 1: when people gossip in a larger society, they're they're trusting
Speaker 1: that the person is either vouching for the person or
Speaker 1: they're being warned against trusting that third party. Right, So
Speaker 1: it works in that same way that it's like a
Speaker 1: it's a means of um keeping tabs on everybody at
Speaker 1: the same time. On the other hand, or at the
Speaker 1: same time, it's also um a means of social control
Speaker 1: because if you know people are gossiping about everybody else,
Speaker 1: then surely they're gonna gossip about you too, which means
Speaker 1: you better just be an upstanding, upright person. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: was this uh, this what's his first name, Fineberg, let's
Speaker 1: just say Dr Fineberg, Dr Fineberg at Toronto in Toronto,
Speaker 1: University of Toronto. He's done some studies and he did
Speaker 1: find in fact that uh, basically they did these studies
Speaker 1: where they were um, were you were allowed to exclude
Speaker 1: non co operators in like a group work setting, and
Speaker 1: they found that you you set them out for one game,
Speaker 1: like you've not been playing nicely, so you go sit
Speaker 1: over there in the corner, and when they came back,
Speaker 1: they were more likely to behave in other rounds. And uh,
Speaker 1: if they knew that their behavior was gossiped about people,
Speaker 1: sort of like what you're talking about, the staring, Like
Speaker 1: if you knew someone was watching you, you would return
Speaker 1: the grocery cart. If you know, if you know someone's
Speaker 1: gossiping about you, you're gonna tow that line and get
Speaker 1: your act together exactly. It's again, it's a means of
Speaker 1: social control. You know. Who were really really really good
Speaker 1: at gossiping. Uh, the Puritans in colonial America, they were huge,
Speaker 1: Like their whole society operated on gossip and the encouragement
Speaker 1: of gossip. As a matter of fact, I think women
Speaker 1: were called gossips um and not necessarily negatively. It's just
Speaker 1: like there was a really good means of social control.
Speaker 1: Not only was God watching you, your neighbors were too,
Speaker 1: and they would go tell the preacher who would put
Speaker 1: a scolds bridle on you and maybe them too for
Speaker 1: telling and toss you in the lake. Yeah, and if
Speaker 1: you if you drowned, you weren't a witch. All right,
Speaker 1: well let's take another break and we'll talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more about some studies and some other theories about
Speaker 1: the origin of gossip. Uh so, Fineberg, we talked about
Speaker 1: Dr Freinberg. Okay, I hope he or she is a doctor, um,
Speaker 1: but if not, we just gave him an honorary honorary
Speaker 1: doctorate from stuff. You should know you people are going
Speaker 1: to request those now, which is great, but we can
Speaker 1: sell them. Uh So. One thing that he found is
Speaker 1: that gossip can also relieve you, um, physiologically, Like if
Speaker 1: you know that you're allowed to gossip, you won't get
Speaker 1: as upset about unfair things then if you had to
Speaker 1: hold it all in or it's like a way of
Speaker 1: setting injustice, right yeah, like it's street justice without like
Speaker 1: a Saudo shotgun as Charles Bronze I would dispense it right.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, good point. Man. Have you gone back and
Speaker 1: seen Death Wish recently? That is a rough movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, same with Death Wish too. What did you
Speaker 1: think it was? I mean, I remember seeing movies when
Speaker 1: I was a kid and just being like, you know,
Speaker 1: as a growing up You're like, this was nothing. That
Speaker 1: was something. Those movies were very violent and very disturbing.
Speaker 1: You see, Joles Brunson did not ask questions. No, he
Speaker 1: just shot everybody. He did. Man, that was crazy. Why
Speaker 1: why did you go back and rewatch Death Wish? I
Speaker 1: gotta watch something good? Point it was on. That's why
Speaker 1: I got you. I was like, I haven't seen Death
Speaker 1: Wishing forever. When's the last time you saw it? It's
Speaker 1: been a while. It's disturbing, especially as an adult. You
Speaker 1: know what movie I love? What Chardles Brunson movie I love?
Speaker 1: Is a mechanic? Well, that one's good too. Um, what's
Speaker 1: it called ten past Midnight? Is that right? I think
Speaker 1: that's on Netflix. Maybe there was. There was some creepy
Speaker 1: serial killer, like psycho sexual killer that he was. He
Speaker 1: was he's always hunting some money. He was the Liam
Speaker 1: Neeson of his day. That was like supposedly a very
Speaker 1: very underrated horror thriller, horror slasher thriller. I'm with you
Speaker 1: all the way. I haven't seen it's good though, it's good.
Speaker 1: I'll check it out. Very creepy and and I learned,
Speaker 1: well it's not for kids because I learned some things
Speaker 1: in that movie. Oh yeah, yeah, it's one of those
Speaker 1: I can specifically remember. It's like, oh, well, that's how
Speaker 1: I know what this is. Charles Bronson will teach you
Speaker 1: all about life, whether you want to learn it or not.
Speaker 1: I think it was ten past midnight. Um, all right,
Speaker 1: sorry about that sidetrack. Where were we? Uh we were
Speaker 1: talking about the origins of gossip. Oh yeah, there's some
Speaker 1: Did you read the other article I sent? Um? I
Speaker 1: think it was from the Guardian, I can't remember where.
Speaker 1: One of the theories is that I was a BBC
Speaker 1: that hunting and gathering and foraging was a big reason
Speaker 1: gossiping came about because you had to know, you had
Speaker 1: to talk about each other, like you know tuk tuk.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not very good at the hunting, but
Speaker 1: he's quite the gatherer. So it helps them organize in
Speaker 1: the most efficient way to get things done, because how
Speaker 1: is she going to know unless you tell somebody what's
Speaker 1: going on. So that makes sense, No, it is. And again,
Speaker 1: if this person, if the if the band is large
Speaker 1: enough for the civilization is large enough that the person
Speaker 1: can't keep an eye on tuk tuk all the time,
Speaker 1: that's how that person will gain understanding of tuk tuk's
Speaker 1: abilities for tuck tuck keeping tabs on poor tuktok uh.
Speaker 1: And then the other cool thing I thought was the
Speaker 1: uh when we finally learned to harness fire. Uh. This
Speaker 1: hypothesis is during the day, we were out, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to stay alive and doing our thing, finding building shelters,
Speaker 1: hunting for food, finding water, and at night when we
Speaker 1: finally got fire, well before fire, you would just go
Speaker 1: to sleep and rest because it was dark and it's
Speaker 1: weird to sit around the dark. But once they had fire,
Speaker 1: people literally from the very beginning started sitting around and
Speaker 1: talking about their day and kind of gossiping about what happened.
Speaker 1: And it's amazing. It's hard to blame anybody if you
Speaker 1: think about it, like, when's the last time you had
Speaker 1: a legitimately interesting conversation about fantastical stuff? They're there are
Speaker 1: few and far between. For the most part. People are
Speaker 1: talking about their day. They're talking about people they work with,
Speaker 1: talking about some dude that cut them off in traffic.
Speaker 1: They're talking about their immediate experience. So of course you're
Speaker 1: gonna gossip. It's this if if the definition of gossip
Speaker 1: is talking about people who aren't there every year, right,
Speaker 1: everyone gossips you're going to It's a completely natural thing.
Speaker 1: And I'm totally unsurprised by the idea that it started
Speaker 1: out at the first campfire, of course, and it still
Speaker 1: happens today. Apparently, there are researchers who studied um bushmen
Speaker 1: in the Kalahari Desert in Botswana and they say that
Speaker 1: the language and the stories and the things they say
Speaker 1: during the day are completely different than the things they
Speaker 1: say at night around the campfire. And they say, there's
Speaker 1: really no reason to think this hasn't always been the case.
Speaker 1: That's neat um. So you said that still goes on
Speaker 1: to day, And we were talking about modern studies of gossiping, right, Um.
Speaker 1: One of the there was like a series of studies.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they were all from the U
Speaker 1: of Toronto or not, but they seemed to be somewhat
Speaker 1: related where it was um. Outside observers could watch people
Speaker 1: playing games and they noticed cheaters. So they had this
Speaker 1: information about cheaters that the people playing the games didn't
Speaker 1: have about the cheaters. And when they were given the
Speaker 1: the chance to let the players know about a cheater,
Speaker 1: to send him. I think like a gossip note is
Speaker 1: what they called it. UM. They they would most people
Speaker 1: would take them up on the offer and would send
Speaker 1: a note of warning to the person that they were
Speaker 1: playing somebody who was cheating UM, and they, like you said,
Speaker 1: they went from being really upset and up in arms
Speaker 1: to that release valve being undone and every it was
Speaker 1: fine with the world again because that person had been
Speaker 1: alerted to cheating through gossiping. So there is such thing
Speaker 1: as altruistic gossiping as well. Yeah, with altruism. Tracy had
Speaker 1: another example of let's say there's like a coral group
Speaker 1: and the self appointed leader is really kind of lazy,
Speaker 1: and if someone um, then other people are kind of
Speaker 1: making up the slack doing the duties that UM he
Speaker 1: or she should be doing. So when new comes in
Speaker 1: the group and they say, hey, listen this this girl,
Speaker 1: Jane is the head of the coral group. But you
Speaker 1: should know don't count on Jane to bring the sheet
Speaker 1: music for you because she never does it. So that's
Speaker 1: sort of altruistic in the you're helping someone learn the
Speaker 1: rules of your new group, but you're also kind of
Speaker 1: talking smack and making yourself superior to Jane, right. And
Speaker 1: then so Tracy adde of this one another thing that
Speaker 1: some people would say that the person who's doing that
Speaker 1: is really, like you said, just talking smack and isn't
Speaker 1: really working towards a solution to the actual problem, which
Speaker 1: is Jane being slack at her job. Right. And I wonder,
Speaker 1: like that's a really good descriptive of what gossip is.
Speaker 1: Like gossip would be talk that's not directed toward any
Speaker 1: kind of solution. It's just talking. You know, like if
Speaker 1: you take that same conversation to somebody who can fire
Speaker 1: Jane or make her do her job, you would no
Speaker 1: one would consider that gossip because it's directed toward a goal,
Speaker 1: towards the solution. So I guess, and that's probably one
Speaker 1: thing that people don't like about gossip. It's it's really
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, it's just blowing off steam.
Speaker 1: It's not really serving any direct purpose. They all seem
Speaker 1: to be indirect, like socializing people. I did, now I
Speaker 1: need an honorary doctor from somewhere. You've got one. Um.
Speaker 1: And then lastly, chuck um. One of the other things,
Speaker 1: especially from malicious bond Um malicious Um gossip, is that
Speaker 1: UM when somebody. It's a very dangerous game, right, when
Speaker 1: you're gossiping with somebody, especially you with somebody that you're
Speaker 1: not super tight with, um, you you run the risk
Speaker 1: of scaring that person. Because if there's one thing that
Speaker 1: people do when they hear gossip, it's they take themselves
Speaker 1: and put themselves in that situation. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that you will immediately think when you're being gossip too,
Speaker 1: is well, this person gossips, so they could very easily
Speaker 1: be gossiping about me. How much should I trust this person?
Speaker 1: And that's especially pertinent when it's not already like a
Speaker 1: tight pair, and when the gossip is malicious, you know.
Speaker 1: Good point. Yeah, well it's not mine. I'm just relating facts.
Speaker 1: You ever see you ever watched that Gossip Girl show? No,
Speaker 1: but there's a Twitter handle gossip girl. I'd noticed in
Speaker 1: my research, and it's like real right, No, it's like
Speaker 1: real gossip. Really Yeah, I've never seen it either, But
Speaker 1: that's not real gossip because it's all celebrity gossip, right.
Speaker 1: I think that's a kid's not a kid show show
Speaker 1: for younger people than me. It's for middle aged man.
Speaker 1: Although I do like Blake Lively, so well that was
Speaker 1: one other thing too, like when I don't we haven't
Speaker 1: come out and said this. Um, there's a definite perception
Speaker 1: that gossip is much more prevalent among women. Sure that's
Speaker 1: not true. No, No, research shows that men and women
Speaker 1: basically across the board equally gossip. It's old white men. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's old white old white men under attack in America.
Speaker 1: You got anything else? Uh? No, sir, being trolley? You
Speaker 1: know that? Yeah? Uh. If you want to know more
Speaker 1: about gossip, you can type that word in the search
Speaker 1: bar at how stuff works dot com and it will
Speaker 1: bring up this article complete with totally superfluous illustrations that
Speaker 1: will baffle the mind. Um, did you see him? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just weird. I kept looking like did I miss
Speaker 1: a story or something that relates to that. It became
Speaker 1: a game find the meaning? Uh? And I think I
Speaker 1: said search bar, and I think I said how stuff works.
Speaker 1: But either way, it's time for listening. Now I'm gonna
Speaker 1: call this Disney Disney band. Hello, Chuck, Josh and Jerry
Speaker 1: and Neil. He really wouldn't Neil the chair, No, Frank
Speaker 1: was the chair. I think he means nol probably, So
Speaker 1: it's just hilarious. I've been listening for a few months now,
Speaker 1: binging episodes like uh, well, I can't see what she says. Um.
Speaker 1: I just listened to your part one of Fairy Tales
Speaker 1: in the last time on my way to work. The
Speaker 1: reason I'm writing is about the original Little Mermaid story.
Speaker 1: When I was growing up, my parents were hardcore Southern Baptist.
Speaker 1: During my childhood, the Southern Baptist Convention did not like
Speaker 1: that Disney was friendly towards homosexuals and supported evolution, so
Speaker 1: they called on all the churches to boycott Disney. So
Speaker 1: my parents, a good Southern Baptist that they were, took
Speaker 1: everything Disney out of our house and we weren't allowed
Speaker 1: to have any Disney clothes or watch the Disney Channel,
Speaker 1: and of course no Disney movies. So when the Disney
Speaker 1: version of The Little Mermaid came out in nine I
Speaker 1: was in first grade, all my friends watched it, loved it.
Speaker 1: My mom was at a loss. Luckily, Golden Films released
Speaker 1: their own version of The Little Mermaid and my mom
Speaker 1: bought it. I watched this many times as a child,
Speaker 1: honestly thinking this is the only vision. Didn't learn until
Speaker 1: a few years later when I saw the original at
Speaker 1: her friend's house. Um, boy, I bet she felt like
Speaker 1: watching The Little Mermaid. It's in color. Uh. This version
Speaker 1: I saw followed the original story by Hans Christian Anderson,
Speaker 1: complete with a terrifying sea witch and the suicide at
Speaker 1: the end, which was a great movie for a first grader,
Speaker 1: the sea which started my nightmares. That's about the time
Speaker 1: that I started smoking cigarette. So thanks for all the
Speaker 1: great side tracking as well as the amazing content you provide.
Speaker 1: And that is from Lindsay. Well, thanks a lot, Lindsay
Speaker 1: appreciate that. I'm glad you finally got to see The
Speaker 1: Little Mermaid. I like that she thanked us for side tracking.
Speaker 1: Some people do. Sure, it's pretty infrequent people are like
Speaker 1: to you on point, and when they do, I'm like, buddy,
Speaker 1: you have a long archive to go through. If that
Speaker 1: bothers you, We've got There's a lot of good sidetracks today.
Speaker 1: And it was ten past midnight, by the way. Nice um.
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with this, you
Speaker 1: can tweet to us at s Y s K Podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff
Speaker 1: you should know. You can send us an email to
Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast at how Stuff Works dot com and Chuck
Speaker 1: as always join us at at home on the web
Speaker 1: Stuck Chuck, Stuff you Should Know Chuck dot Com. Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.