Let me break a poorly kept secret—most of us love to gossip. We may not like to admit it, but a little drama or tea does get our hearts fluttering with intrigue. Though gossip is a common (I’d push to say prevalent) part of our lives, one that boosts camaraderie and shares vital social information, it is pushed aside as useless, unsubstantiated, and unbecoming. Undoubtedly, since it is typically seen as a gendered practice attributed to women, it is considered an invaluable information source. However, I argue that gossip is not only valuable for understanding social attitudes, but also crucial to building and contributing to oral history.
So, what do I mean when I say ‘gossip?’ Generally, it refers to informal talk about information intended to be secretive or private. It often involves information about other people or our relationship with others. While this definition does not refer to gossip’s value, gendered nature, or morality – we can’t ignore that it is riddled with stereotypes. Gossip is commonly known to be female-centric, negative, unsubstantiated and useless. While this is not entirely untrue, it is still a sexist overestimation of the nature of gossip.
Firstly, several studies have discovered that men gossip just as much as women. The only difference is that male gossip is considered anecdotes, “jokelore,” stories or “conventional wisdom” – any group female talk is often demoted to being malicious gossip. Secondly, not all gossip is negative. Gossip can be positive, allowing individuals to confide burdens they face or ask questions that society looks down upon. For example, when speaking of sex and relationships, many people engage in conversations with trusted peers to avoid being viewed as salacious. A study reported in Science Daily observing 467 subjects discovered that most of the gossip that arose was, in fact, neutral and not malicious. Thirdly, while some gossip can be based on rumours and harm one’s reputation, not all are unsubstantiated or untrue. Lastly, and perhaps most relevant for this article, gossip is not useless. Many sociologists and anthropologists have observed that gossip is integral to building connections and sustaining societies. We need communal spaces to speak of, explore and question social and personal problems to understand how to communicate and function in a societal setting. Without it, we would be removed or distant from each other and might struggle to build and maintain long-lasting relationships. In fact, gossip is so common in our everyday lives that it is surprisingly not credited as a necessary means of oral history.
What is oral history? Well, it depends on who you ask. In the world of research methods, it is most popularly understood as a technique for gathering information about a community through planned and recorded interviews. However, this notion of oral history limits what constitutes ‘valuable’ knowledge sharing and production. Present research methods are still bogged down by ideas of the past – much of which are racist and ignore the lived experiences of the same communities they are trying to learn about. This occurs by placing hard lines on what is considered to be oral history. That is, it must be planned, recorded vocally and in written form, and come from a primary human source.
However, sources of oral history are much more than that. They encompass oral traditions. Oral traditions include folktales, myths, artistic expressions, songs and inscriptions. These are often the fabric by which Indigenous, underrepresented and repressed communities share their culture, history and beliefs with each other. In essence, it is how they keep their community and history alive. They are often not taken seriously by researchers because they usually do not fit within the hard lines of what academic oral history collection is understood to be. Academia tends to be skeptical of oral traditions as valuable sources for oral history. The primary argument against this concept is that finding the primary source of oral traditions to interview and record is often impossible.
The rigidity of oral history research methods still bears the mark of its colonial origins when oral history was considered inferior to the written word. That is, history is only worthy of being known when its records are in written form—a form practiced primarily by colonial powers and not by Indigenous populations.
“Western discourse has come to prioritize the written word as the dominant form of record keeping, and until recently, Westerners have generally considered oral societies to be peoples without history. This could not be further from the truth. Oral societies record and document their histories in complex and sophisticated ways, including performative practices such as dancing and drumming.”
Given this archaic view, oral history still follows some of its ancestors’ beliefs that oral history must be recorded as a conversation between a member of a society and a researcher to be considered a ‘real’ source of history, thereby ignoring oral traditions. Yet, traditions of this type are foundational to the development of cultures and act as the standard for action and behaviour. To truly understand a culture and its people, it is valuable to understand the oral traditions that were involved in its development. But what acts are involved in the creation of oral traditions? I believe that gossip is one likely candidate.
One of the most common oral traditions is folktales. These stories have been orally passed down in communities through generations. They often prescribe moral values that are culturally significant to a society. They help address the anxiety, fear and questions an individual has when being a part of a community. While the exact events of the story may be fictional, there are inklings of truth within them. As such, storytelling is a significant part of the development of a culture. Gossip is a type of storytelling. When sharing a piece of gossip with others, we find ourselves relaying the events in a captivating manner to capture the listener’s attention and interest. This is not to suggest that the series of events is untrue but that they are told in the form of a story that is made interesting. Gossip also covers social and cultural topics that highlight the anxieties we have in our community – it speaks to specific moral lapses or private musings that cannot be spoken of in public. The nature of the gossip then points to the cultural norms that bind a society. As such, they are oral stories that, when passed through time and space, get mixed with truths and falsities in an endless game of broken telephone that ultimately become stories that pass on lessons – much like folktales. The origin of folktales may even be gossip.
No matter how we feel about gossip, it is undoubtedly related to valuable oral traditions, which are associated with making oral histories. But why is gossip only known by its stereotypes? Well, gossip is a tool for the marginalised. It is an outlet for those with little power to have a voice and say in their culture. In many communities where women are not significantly part of the public sphere, they wield their power of speech in private and amongst peers. These communications embolden marginalised communities as they mobilise them to come together and share stories, opinions and views. An organized, aware person is often a threat to those in power.. Since it happens in private, the public sphere is controlled by the powerful, who cannot exercise much control over the conversations. As such, in order to retain power, it is in the interest of the powerful to deem gossip, stereotypically associated with the marginalised, as negative, problematic and worthless.
Gossip is a common and integral part of society, and it is valuable to understand and credit for its role in developing oral traditions. It can even be a tool for collecting oral histories.
Note on artwork: The artwork featured here is titled ‘Yayoi asukayama hanami’, by Kitao Shigemasa, 17th century Japanese print artist, a series of his artwork has been made available for use on Unsplash by the Library of Congress.
References
Erin Hansen, ‘Oral Traditions,’ https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/oral_traditions/
