Gossip Girl: The Devil’s Telephone or the Basis of Social Bonding?

‘One winds on the distaff what the other spins (Both spread gossip) ’ by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (16th c)

Gossip, or “God-sibb”, is rooted in the Old English word for “God-parent”. Not an etymology easily guessed. Probably good to know for a very niche pub quiz. The meaning evolved to be understood as demarking female friendships, often of the mother and midwife. The women who were raised together, or by each other, and who they would know their whole lives.

The term was only pejorated in the early 1500s. According to Marxist feminist scholar, Silvia Federici, this occurred in coordination with the proliferation of witch trials as close female friendships became signifiers of witchcraft and proximity to the Devil. A device commonly used as public punishment for gossiping or scolding at the time was the witch’s bridle. A cage for the head with a bit to sit in the transgressors mouth, preventing speech. This public humiliation was in practice long before and after the witch craze, women were more often sentenced with time in the witch’s bridle. The point wasn’t the Devil, the point was to silence & humiliate women. 

That association of gossip as a moral depravity and hierarchically lesser form of communication is what inspired linguist Deborah Jones to research gossip as a social device. She divided gossip into four categories: “house talk”, “scandal”, “bitching”, and “chatting”. Building on this idea, linguist Robin Dunbar proposed that gossip was the reason humans had developed language. Just like primates, dolphins and birds, humans “socially groom” each other through gossip.

Even the modern rumour mill “grooms” those engaging in gossip for appropriate social behaviour. If Cathy was doing something worth talking about behind her back, we would never consider doing that ourselves lest we get gossiped about. Although, that social lesson clearly wasn’t learned by the characters of Gossip Girl.

Gossip also serves as a bonding mechanism. By triangulating conversation against a third person who isn’t there, gossipers create a space in common with one another. Gossipers create an ‘us’ and an ‘other’ that brings speakers emotionally closer, even if the ‘other’ is some unsuspecting victim living their best life.

This brings us to the dark side of gossip. The side you probably thought of when you read the title. Scandal, ruined reputation, social division. Rumour and village gossip was often the basis for witchcraft accusations and convictions during the European Craze. Gossip can be lethal. 

Gossip can make the target of the rumour mill feel isolated, alienated & unfairly judged without representation. Gossip is invasive and explosive. In an article written by a Cambridge student, the author points out that gossip in such close and intense quarters as Cambridge colleges becomes a weapon and one further social pressure in an already highly pressurized environment.

Children are taught that gossiping is morally repugnant. That the lasting damage it causes is never worth the short-lived thrill of sharing a secret and airing others’ business. And yet, gossip rags are incredibly financially successful. As of 2015, the industry was estimated at $3 billion. TMZ, Page Six, Deuxmoi, Perez Hilton, The Shade Room, and so on, all peddle highly speculative celebrity gossip that people lap up like water, and build their parasocial relationships through.

Gossip is a central element of social bonding. Even when the effects of rumours are harmful, someone benefits in that relationship, someone feels a kinship in a confidant. And the association of gossip with women, though historically understandable, is a harmful, outdated stereotype that is also untrue. Men are just as likely to bitch and ‘dish the dirt’. Afterall, as the rumour goes, MI5 recruited British Boy Scouts to deliver messages during World War I but soon fired them because they wouldn’t stop gossiping about their top secret jobs.