Recommending a book he just finished reading, a friend said, “You will love it. The author rattles skeletons in the closets of some well-known folks. The juicy gossip it contains made the book a bestseller.”
His comment confirms what we all know: With shameful regularity, gossip attracts even the most virtuous souls, and for those of us nowhere close to being in the most-virtuous-souls category, its appeal reaches intoxicating proportions.
And, just like liquid intoxicants, gossip generates hangovers of a sort. After gulping down baseless hearsay and garnishing it into execrable exaggeration, gossipers confirm what English poet Alexander Pope once said: “And all who told it added something new, and all who heard it made enlargements too.”
Bad gossip and good storytelling share characteristics that make the former more injurious and the latter more interesting: Malicious gossip enthralls listeners; sensationalized storytelling enthralls readers … both for the same reason: Listeners and readers want to know more.
To illustrate this similarity and to demonstrate gossip’s deleterious potential, students in my creative writing course designed a gossip project.
First they drew names to determine who would be the project’s target. Candace was the unlucky victim. Then they invented nasty pieces of gossip about her and passed them on to other students, who in turn added their own embellishments.
Although everyone, including Candace, thought the project was enjoyable and educational, they realized that if any of the contributions were truthful, they would severely damage the targeted individual’s reputation; combined, they would destroy it. By the time the exercise circulated through the whole class, that which began as mere ripples of hilarious hearsay evolved into an avalanche of untrue aspersions.
Students used such hyperbolical utterances as, “You won’t believe what I heard about Candace!” which in turn generated such responses as, “I always suspected she was low-life trailer trash.”
Had the project been real instead of staged, those too gullible to doubt the false claims would have been convinced that Candace should not be allowed to continue roaming the streets and tainting civilized society.
If only gossiping worked the other way! But gossip is never about goodness. People don’t gossip about other people’s virtues, a truth reaffirmed a few days later, as I walked into a mall to Christmas shop and was hailed by a familiar voice.
“Hello, Professor Reed.” It was Candace, wearing a Salvation Army apron and jingling a bell, soliciting donations for the needy.
“Good gracious, young lady, it is freezing out here! I hope someone takes your place soon.”
“Yes, sir — my shift ends at four.” She had been standing there, ringing the bell, since eight that morning.
I hugged the young woman, dropped a few bucks in her bucket and walked away, reminding myself to tell the creative writing class about Candace’s volunteer work. When I did, no one seemed interested, which proved the project’s point. Then I asked, “What is the ultimate lesson of this project?”
No one ventured to surpass Candace’s response: “Gossip is never about goodness.”
Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.
This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.
Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
Recommending a book he just finished reading, a friend said, “You will love it. The author rattles skeletons in the closets of some well-known folks. The juicy gossip it contains made the book a bestseller.”
His comment confirms what we all know: With shameful regularity, gossip attracts even the most virtuous souls, and for those of us nowhere close to being in the most-virtuous-souls category, its appeal reaches intoxicating proportions. 