Recently I took a trip down memory lane to a particularly shameful day in my past. It’s a day that’s been burned into my brain—the day that I discovered how fun it can be to tear another person down.

I doubt there are many people who can look back on their pre-teen and teenage years and avoid feeling at least a little bit of shame and embarrassment. It’s an awkward time in which everyone is figuring out who they want to be and how to be cool. That second part often comes with destructive results.

I was 12 years old on the school yard. For no particular reason, a group of friends and I spontaneously decided to start ripping apart one of our other friends (I’ll give her the pseudonym “Kate”) behind her back. It was a long time ago, and so I can’t remember many specifics. But I remember exactly how fun it was. It was so much fun that during my next class, I took it upon myself to invite other friends to join in the party. “Wanna hang out with us next recess and gossip about Kate?” I asked. It was thrilling.

That evening, I saw that Kate had updated her MSN Messenger status (was it called a “status” on MSN? Hey, remember when people used to chat on MSN?) It wasn’t pretty. Kate was screaming in all caps about liars and backstabbers. “I CAN’T BELIEVE I EVER TRUSTED YOU!” she wrote.

Kids are stupid. This isn’t just my opinion, it’s science. The part of the human brain that effectively understands the relationship between action and consequence isn’t fully developed until a person reaches their twenties [1]. It wasn’t until that evening, reading Kate’s status, that I realized that my actions would actually have an effect other than my own amusement.

I wish I could say that in that moment I learned my lesson and I never did anything like it again. But humans are strange beasts. It took me a long time to grow up.

Now that I’m an adult, I think I live a fairly gossip-free-life, but even though I do my best not to engage, I can’t deny that I still find it fun and even exciting when I overhear the same kind of toxic chatter that I used to take part in. But why?

Why Do People Love Gossip?

There have been many attempts by researchers and psychologists to explain this.

Some say that gossip is how people make friends and relate to each other. By sharing secret information, we demonstrate trust [2]. Furthermore, gossip helps to build social bonds. People bond over common opinions, mutual interests, or in this case, shared dislikes. Two people will feel closer to each other if they say something mean about a third party [3].

Perhaps, evolution has given humans a built-in fascination with the lives of others in order to promote social interaction. Most people would say that they disapprove of gossip, but the fact remains that this deep-seeded fascination gets the better of most of us. Some research shows that as much as 60% of conversations between adults are about a party who isn't present, and most of those conversations are judgmental [3]. This fascination is most grossly evident in the $3 billion dollar celebrity gossip industry[4].

In truth, I think the main reason we gossip is quite simple. Schadenfreude. The pleasure derived from seeing someone else's misfortune. We watch reality TV shows and look at celebrity magazines and think, "My life may not be that glamorous, but at least I'm not an alcoholic"[4].

We all want to feel better about ourselves. And why would I spend time and effort on self-improvement when it’s so much easier to bring others down to a lower level? I don’t need to make myself appear better, I just need to make others appear worse, if only just in my own mind.

It’s like a drug. It’s intoxicating. When I feel bad, I can just take a hit of that sweet, sweet gossip and instantly feel better. The lure of being in the loop is seductive, and stepping out of that loop can be one of the hardest things ever because gossip is the "standard currency of human connection" [4].

Holding information on another person is power. It's "social capital." We may have no intention of ever using that information maliciously, we just want to have and share that information so that we can feel great [2].

This kind of self-improvement workaround may give a person some short term happiness, but it doesn’t solve the real problem. People who gossip have a low sense of self-worth. When you believe that you don’t have much value, and your life support system is built on the hope that “at least that other guy is worse” all you’ve done is created a breeding ground for toxicity.

The cycle of toxic talk and toxic thought will continue as long as people seek to bring others down in order to make themselves feel good.

We're better than that.

Let's be better. 

~Seth

SOURCES:

1. American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 
2. Elite Daily
3. Psychologies
4. Psychology Today

IMAGE SOURCES:

1. Banner Image (edited and re-uploaded by me)
2. Gossip Cartoon