We live in a world obsessed by gossip. The media glean over every possible detail they can about celebrities’ lives. There is usually no news content in this type of reporting. There is nothing that serves the public interest in terms of right or wrong. It is all just about the detail of a person’s life because other people have an interest in the way a celebrity leads their life. Indeed, this approach has become
so all pervasive that at a global media event, like the wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton, much of the reporting focused on the hats and dresses that famous women wore! Amazingly, a woman can become a celebrity based on just one appearance in an attention-getting dress. Gossip tells us this is how Kate Middleton first caught Prince William’s attention at a charity fashion show at St Andrew’s University. Her sister, Pippa Middleton, similarly rose to global fame based on her bridesmaid’s dress.
If all this seems unfair, why is media gossip of this kind so all pervasive? Psychologists are very clear that gossip serves a real social purpose. People gossip as a way of finding out about each other’s likes and dislikes. And this is one of the ways in which we create social bonds between us. Apparently, the quickest way to liking someone is to find out who you dislike in common. This is a way of defining yourself in opposition to someone who is usually not like you or does not think or behave like you. This type of bonding is very important when a country goes to war. People pull together very strongly when they feel under threat from an enemy of some kind.
But is this good? The answer is probably not. Whenever people define their liking for each other by those they dislike or fear, the person they dislike or fear always loses out. This is very true in the workplace where teams often bond by their fear of or opposition to someone – usually a boss or department that makes life difficult for them in some kind of way. In this situation, the team that is bonding does so in a way that creates a secret around the fact that everyone in that team dislikes or distrusts their boss or other department. To join the team, you have to hear this secret and take it on. This means that you join the team on the understanding that you are going to behave in a secretly agreed way towards the people outside the secret. Almost always, the result of this kind of team bonding is that someone feels left out, excluded, ignored, disliked or unvalued.
Do you know the British words for these?
Elevator, cookie, apartment, trunk, parking lot, fries, potato chips, (baby) pacifier, garbage collector, main street, truck, math, sidewalk, gas, eraser.
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