Gossip, Then and Now

Summary

Critics at Large | The New Yorker
Episode: Gossip, Then and Now
Release Date: April 3, 2025

Gossip, Then and Now delves deep into the ubiquitous yet often misunderstood phenomenon of gossip. Hosts Alex Schwartz, Vincent Cunningham, and Nomi Frye navigate through personal anecdotes, historical contexts, literary examples, and the transformative impact of technology on how we gossip today. This comprehensive discussion not only explores the multifaceted nature of gossip but also examines its ethical implications and evolving dynamics in the modern era.

---

Introduction to Gossip

The episode opens with the hosts acknowledging gossip as a universal human activity, integral to our interactions across various spheres—be it work, friendships, or romantic relationships.

Alex Schwartz introduces the topic by emphasizing the need to understand gossip not just from a personal standpoint but through a broader cultural lens:

"We're talking about universal things today. This topic is about as universal as it gets. It's something we all do."
[03:27]

Nomi Frye and Vincent Cunningham share their personal views, with Nomi admitting her love for gossip while clarifying she doesn't see herself as malicious:

"I have to admit, I just gotta come clean. Love gossip."
[03:49]

Vincent reflects on his own relationship with gossip, highlighting the dichotomy between being a gossiper and the one being gossiped about:

"I'm deficient in whatever quality it is that makes people want to tell me gossip. So I often feel outside of it."
[04:07]

---

Defining Gossip and Its Evolution

Alex Schwartz discusses her recent piece in The New Yorker, which reviews Kelsey McKinney's book You'd Didn't Hear This from Me: Mostly True Notes on Gossip. She grapples with defining gossip, contrasting it with mere conversation or professional discourse.

Alex Schwartz explores the origins and transformation of the word "gossip":

"Originally, this is the origin of the word. It meant someone who you were connected to by baptism... someone who you'd be so close with that you would share intimate details."
[22:24]

Nomi Frye adds historical context by discussing the Jewish prohibition on gossip, known as lashon hara:

"Lashon hara means lashon is tongue. Hara is evil, is evil."
[22:26]

The hosts trace the negative connotations of gossip back to biblical narratives, particularly focusing on Eve from the Old Testament, who is often portrayed as the archetype of destructive female gossip:

"Eve has been used as this prototype of loose talk by women for centuries."
[20:54]

---

Gossip in Literature and Media

The conversation shifts to literary examples, highlighting how gossip has been depicted and its consequences.

Alex Schwartz references Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth and A Custom of the Country to illustrate contrasting portrayals of gossip:

"In the first one, gossip is just a force of destruction... eight years later, we get the shameless Undine Sprague who wants to be gossiped about."
[33:57]

Nomi Frye discusses modern television portrayals, citing Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and Gossip Girl as contemporary reflections of gossip's role in regulating social dynamics:

"The line between private and public is very... very muddy."
[36:23]

Vincent Cunningham introduces Zora Neale Hurston's Moses, Man of the Mountain as a nuanced literary exploration of gossip:

"It illuminates the two sides of rumors... gossip is always kind of dancing between truth and lies."
[29:32]

---

The Impact of Technology on Gossip

A significant portion of the discussion centers on how digital advancements have transformed the landscape of gossip.

Alex Schwartz highlights platforms like Deuxmoi on Instagram, which facilitate the rapid dissemination of celebrity gossip:

"Anyone is fodder for public conversation. Just being in public makes you potentially fodder for gossip."
[34:57]

The hosts express concerns about privacy erosion in the digital age, where sharing and spreading gossip has become effortless and instantaneous.

Nomi Frye references how technology blurs ethical lines, making private moments public:

"Is everyone fair, fair game? And in the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills... you don't bring up my husband for everybody to know."
[37:37]

Vincent Cunningham discusses the evidentiary nature of modern gossip, where leaks and screenshots bridge the gap between rumor and news:

"The evidentiary nature of many of our technologies leads to a lot of this."
[38:22]

---

Ethical Considerations and Personal Boundaries

The episode delves into the moral implications of gossip, questioning what constitutes ethical versus harmful gossip.

Alex Schwartz and Nomi Frye debate the responsibilities of individuals when engaging in gossip, emphasizing the importance of trust and discretion:

"The people you gossip with need to be vetted. It has to be people you trust. And another thing that's important, if someone asks you not to share something, be a vault."
[44:18 - 45:20]

They explore the fine line between gossip and news, using examples like Barack and Michelle Obama's rumored split, which transitioned from mere gossip to widely discussed news:

"It was the first person this happened to. Me too ... her fate became public."
[40:39]

Vincent Cunningham brings up Linda Tripp’s role in the Monica Lewinsky scandal as a case study of gossip crossing ethical boundaries:

"She was told something in confidence that was definitely bad, but she's kind of a bad guy because she secretly recorded and then made it everybody's business."
[42:40 - 43:09]

---

Gossip as a Social Regulator and Empowerment Tool

Despite its negative aspects, the hosts acknowledge gossip's role in social regulation and empowerment, especially for marginalized groups.

Alex Schwartz references the MeToo movement, where gossip-like whisper networks became instrumental in exposing systemic abuses:

"Those things spurred on by the kind of social explosion of people standing up in that ice barticas way and saying, me too."
[42:16]

Nomi Frye concurs, noting how informal networks can challenge power structures:

"Gossip can be an empowering force because information can be shared that might not otherwise be shared among people who are vulnerable to power's abuses."
[42:16]

---

Conclusion: Navigating the Future of Gossip

In wrapping up, the hosts reflect on the complexities of gossip in contemporary society, balancing its intrinsic human nature with the challenges posed by modern technology.

Alex Schwartz muses on the future, pondering whether we are equipped to handle the amplified reach of gossip:

"I do worry about a world in which that privacy is compromised for everybody and you are just potentially gossip fodder for millions."
[35:27]

Nomi Frye emphasizes the need for ethical guidelines, advocating for responsible gossip practices:

"The people you gossip with need to be vetted. It has to be people you trust."
[44:52]

The episode concludes with the hosts acknowledging their own conflicted feelings about gossip, aiming to further unravel its implications in upcoming discussions.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Alex Schwartz on defining gossip:
  "Gossip is something that we all do. We all do it."
  [05:40]

• Vincent Cunningham on secrets and lies in gossip:
  "Gossip is always kind of dancing between truth and lies."
  [29:32]

• Nomi Frye on ethical boundaries:
  "If someone asks you not to share something, be a vault."
  [45:20]

This episode of Critics at Large offers a thorough exploration of gossip, encouraging listeners to reconsider its role and impact in both personal and societal contexts. Through engaging dialogue and insightful analysis, the hosts illuminate the enduring significance of gossip and its transformative journey in the digital age.

Transcript

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[Alex Schwartz]

Here's what I want to know Men absolutely Gossip we know. I want listeners to understand this. Not from me. I'm not the authority. Scientists, my friends, scientists have now shown it. Here's the male gossip I want to know and I want to understand what is going on between Stephen a. Smith and LeBron James.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Well, it depends on who you believe, but they've always had an underground I love this. Stephen A. Smith, a great sports broadcaster, and LeBron James had an altercation at the Lakers game a couple weeks ago. LeBron James comes up to Stephen A. Smith and you can see him saying, like, leave my son out of this shit. And he is referring to Stephen A. Smith's denigration of the basketball skills of LeBron James son who's now in the NBA. LeBron James Jr. AKA Bronny.

[Nomi Frye]

It's Bronny.

[Vincent Cunningham]

It's Brownie. But the gossip behind it is either you could do it two ways. Stephen A. Says, I'm the only person that doesn't kiss the ring. I refuse to say that he's better than Michael Jordan and this is why he doesn't like me. LeBron's camp the people that are sort of in with LeBron say it's as simple as LeBron has never wanted to speak with Stephen A. Or like show up officially on his show that there is a rift there. But it crucially does this intrigue, which has been going on for weeks now. Stephen A. Is on a press tour about it. He talks about it nonstop. And then LeBron James went on another show to talk about it, address things. It has become a florid florid drama with hopefully many more passages to come. I could not. I'm like a pig in shit with Stephen A. And LeBron.

[Alex Schwartz]

Thank you for explaining it. I needed to know.

[Vincent Cunningham]

There you go. Welcome to Critics at Large podcast from the New Yorker. I'm Vincent Cunningham.

[Nomi Frye]

I'm Nomi Frye.

[Alex Schwartz]

And I'm Alex Schwartz. Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here. How's everyone doing?

[Vincent Cunningham]

It's a weird overcast Monday in New York. At least.

[Nomi Frye]

Sweaty. Sweaty. Sweat is back.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, we're in the. We're in the shoulder. We're in the shoulder when summer's about to hit and winter has just ended and spring has shrunk. So sweat is back.

[Nomi Frye]

Sweat is back, baby.

[Alex Schwartz]

And we'll be handling that. Today's topic, Whatever that means. I just mean we have to keep on living. That's all we can do. That's all we can do.

[Nomi Frye]

That's all we can do. And part of living is what we're talking about today.

[Alex Schwartz]

Exactly. We're talking about universal things today. This topic is about as universal as it gets. It's something we all do. We do it at work, we do it with our friends, we do it with our partners. It's gossip.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Ooh, yes.

[Alex Schwartz]

Critics. Do you think of yourselves as gossipy?

[Nomi Frye]

Definitely. I mean, you know, I would say that I wouldn't want to think of myself as a malicious gossiper, and I wouldn't want to think of myself as an unethical gossiper, but, yes, I have to admit, I just gotta come clean. Love gossip.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Mm. One thing that I've noticed is that I'm deficient in whatever quality it is that makes people want to tell me gossip. So I often feel outside of it. I always, like, feel like the last one to know something that everybody already knows. The one context in which I am definitely a gossip, because it doesn't count, is within romantic relationships.

[Alex Schwartz]

Okay.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Because anybody that tells you if you sleep with somebody in the same bed, if you tell me, you are de facto telling my partner. That is something that I believe in strongly.

[Nomi Frye]

Alex, what about you?

[Alex Schwartz]

Initially, I would absolutely be inclined to say no. Like, no, I'm not that gossipy, because I really always, since a very young age. This sounds so obnoxious and gross, but I've been, you know, worried about other people and other people's perceptions.

[Nomi Frye]

No, I totally understand.

[Alex Schwartz]

I don't mean to be like, I care so much for others, but, for instance.

[Nomi Frye]

No, no, no.

[Alex Schwartz]

No, I just would not want to be associated with the idea of gossip. However. Yeah, I do like it, and I do do it. I think parameters are important, and we will be discussing that.

[Vincent Cunningham]

But this question of morality came up in a piece that you recently wrote about gossip. Alex, why did you write that piece? What made you want to write about gossip?

[Alex Schwartz]

Yes, I did write a recent piece about gossip. I know we'll be getting into that a little bit more. Yeah, it's just such a huge. It's one of these topics that is like the sky or the earth itself. You're like, I didn't really notice it until I have to think about it, because it's just always there. And so the idea of looking at something more closely that you take for granted was very appealing to me.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah.

[Alex Schwartz]

Gossip is something that we all do. We all do it. And so that is what we're talking about today. This essential human pastime of talking about other people. Even. Okay, let's be real. Maybe especially when we're not supposed to. We will discuss our favorite examples of gossip in culture. Literature, shows, films, plays, songs, whatever, what have you. And also how the practice of gossip itself has changed over time across different eras and now very different technologies. And the big question I have is, is gossip the same as it was? Are we in a new mode of gossip now that you can just pick up your phone and snap and tweet and Instagram and share it with the world? So that's today on Critics at large, gossip, then and now. I have a question, but I'm not even sure the question is realistic. Okay, I'll just ask it and we can decide. Are you usually the one being gossiped to, the one doing the gossiping or the one being gossiped about? The reason I don't think it's realistic is because I think in our brains, we all go to what we think the answer is, and then you can think of counterexample and counterexample. You know what I'm saying?

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah. And I'll tell you another reason why this is not a totally realistic question, even though I will be answering it shortly.

[Alex Schwartz]

Wonderful.

[Nomi Frye]

Is that. Are you the person being gossiped about? Usually that's something you're not aware of because gossip is mostly secret, if we're lucky. So to the other part of the question. Are you usually the one being gossiped to or the one doing the gossip? I would say it's about half and half. I have my contacts, my trusted contacts that I'm in constant communication with. I mean, not constant, but, you know, I have the people I trust and who trust me to keep it tight. But when I get a text saying from friends saying 911 or I got tea or listen to this goss, my heart skips a beat. The day immediately becomes lighter and more promising. And surely my trusted associates feel similarly when I come in with a 911.

[Alex Schwartz]

It's a tricky question for me because I have a few gossip flashpoints from my past that give me a sense of my gossip personality. But things change. Things. I'll just explain. I was at summer camp, I believe I was 11 years old and one of my fellow campers was about to attend the school that I was going to at the time. And I did the following, which is actually pretty shocking. And I think was influenced, let's get pretentious with it. I think it was influenced by literature. I think I thought I was like Harry of the Spy or something. I wrote a list of various people in our grade, the grade that this person would be coming into with a kind of little, you know, pithy summary of each of them.

[Nomi Frye]

I mean, the gospel as a writer, in a way, you know, I did that. It is a story making thing.

[Alex Schwartz]

Shameful. Shameful. And I think I thought I was doing it as a way of. Because it was all about, you know, the popular kids and this and that. I think I thought it was a way of exercising a little bit of quippy power.

[Nomi Frye]

Subverting power.

[Alex Schwartz]

Subverting power.

[Vincent Cunningham]

It's called punching up.

[Alex Schwartz]

It's called punching up. That's what I certainly thought I was doing.

[Nomi Frye]

I'm all for it, Alex.

[Alex Schwartz]

But I was gossiping. But it was gossiping. I was gossiping. I was saying, let me tell you all about it. I know all about it. Here's what this person's up to. Here's what that one's like. Let me preshape your judgments and influence you. And that's authorial in a way. Let me influence you about this cast of characters.

[Vincent Cunningham]

That's right.

[Alex Schwartz]

And this sheet of paper, of spiral notebook lined paper was found by a counselor who had no idea what this was but knew it wasn't good. And I was reprimanded accordingly.

[Vincent Cunningham]

With what? You fucking sign the thing? What do you mean you got reprimanded?

[Alex Schwartz]

It got out. We're got out. We're gonna.

[Vincent Cunningham]

But it was traced back to you, though.

[Alex Schwartz]

Oh, it was.

[Vincent Cunningham]

This is my question.

[Alex Schwartz]

It certainly traced.

[Nomi Frye]

There was a forensic process, I think.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, there was a forensic process.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Prints were all over the thing.

[Alex Schwartz]

We'll never know. It's the real truth. We'll never know what happened.

[Nomi Frye]

The scene of the confession was heartrending, like Alex bursting into tears.

[Alex Schwartz]

Summer of 1999, my friends. Wow. I know.

[Nomi Frye]

Well, well, Alex. So obviously there is a kind of a deep history with gossip. I don't know if that informed your thinking when you were writing your recent piece in the New Yorker called Is Gossip Good for Us? In which it's partly a review of a new book all about gossip called you'd Didn't Hear this from me. Mostly True Notes on Gossip by the journalist Kelsey McKinney, who until recently was the host of the podcast Normal Gossip.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, I started with this book, as yous say Know me by Kelsey McKinney, and I wanted to know how she approached gossip because she has made a number of cultural products about gossip. She has this podcast, as you say, called Normal Gossip, which she hosted until really recently. And I was mostly curious about. To start by figuring out how this person who has made a real trade of thinking and writing now about gossip thought and wrote about it. And there are a lot of answers to that questions, but one is it's a huge topic because it all depends on how you define gossip. McKinney says gossip is just any two people talking about someone not present. And I actually think that definition can drive you insane and, like, may have driven her slightly to the brink of madness. There's one point in her book where she says that two doctors talking about a patient or gossiping about the patient, just like two people with fan accounts trading stories about Taylor Swift on social media or gossiping about Taylor Swift. And I thought, nope, I don't subscribe to that. Because there's something about gossip that is about pleasure, is about subversion, and is about unofficial purposes. If you're sitting there for professional reasons, discussing a third person because your job says you have to, it's missing some of the gossiping elements. But that's just to say, I mean.

[Nomi Frye]

Unless you're maybe like a tabloid journalist, if gossip is your job.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, but I wanted to know how we all think and feel about it. How I think and feel about it, but also how society has looked on it. And the answer is not that well.

[Nomi Frye]

And what does McKinney say? What is her argument? Is she kind of taking back gossip in the book?

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, I think there is. There's a kind of, I would say, pretty classically, like cultural studies, feminist viewpoint of things that were considered women's activities, trivial, even negative, actually have great social value. Kelsey McKinney is writing in that vein. This idea that gossip as a traditionally women's activity, at least considered that by society at large, has been maligned and has been criticized and has been treated as anything from sinful to a waste of time, but actually can have many positive effects. It can help people who are not in the halls of power talk about those who are in ways that might actually hold those people accountable. It can be pleasure inducing and enjoyable in a world in which many things are not. It can be bonding, you know, all of. All of these different things. And I would say, what's her argument in the book? Her ultimate argument is very simple. It's that gossip is human. I don't think that's the most, like, explosive headline, but that is a point worth considering.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I really liked. And first of all, dear listeners, really, Alex is such a good writer. Like, I was reading this. I was reading this review and I was like, ugh, the master of the review. Yeah. Really, really great.

[Vincent Cunningham]

There's a part where she says, I.

[Nomi Frye]

Would suggest that you all read it.

[Vincent Cunningham]

It's so good. There's a part where she's talking about Truman Capote and talking about the tone of his gossipy story that sort of ruined his social life. And she says, la cote bass.

[Nomi Frye]

La cote bass.

[Vincent Cunningham]

She says that there's a quote, touting tone. Ooh, ooh. It was like a record scratch moment for me.

[Nomi Frye]

One thing that I really liked in your piece is when you talk about kind of like, okay, yeah, gossip is great. Gossip is a way to stick it to the man. Gossip is a way for women to bond. Gossip is a way for whisper network to kind of like upend power structures. But then you get to this part, and I pulled out this quote. You quote Roland Barthes from a lover's discourse, and he is talking about gossip, and he doesn't think gossip is a good thing. And I'm just gonna quote from your piece. Some might claim that even casual gossip can be harmful. Quote, gossip reduces the other to he, she. And this reduction is intolerable to me. Roland Barthes writes in A Lover's Discour. Gossip, Barthes says, is by nature akin to murder to refer to someone in the third person. A wicked pronoun, he calls it, is to render the person absent. And I thought that was such a great. I mean, both the way you framed it and Barthes own claim. When you turn someone from a you into a he, there's something kind of fetishizing about it and deadening and that made me think about a painful anecdote for my own life, which happened, I feel like it was a year ago or so. I don't know if we have yet mentioned deuxmoi, which Kelsey McKinney talks about in her book I know, which is a kind of like gossip network that started on Instagram as a small thing. A woman who remains anonymous had people start sending her sightings of celebrities, usually on the streets of like New York and la, but also in other places. And so my own experience with this is that I had dinner with someone famous, with a famous man. It was at a restaurant in New York. And I was sent, you know, a few days later a post from Dumois that this, this famous person was cited having dinner with a woman. It was like, you know, X person, X celebrity. I saw him at like a restaurant in West Village. He was having dinner with a girl, which thank God they said girl. At least that was nice. But then, but then, but then you guys right after spotted having dinner with a girl. Not pretty. Okay. And I'm reading this. Gorgeous. And I'm like. And now, of course, in the grand scheme of things, I understand what they meant. Yes. I am not like a 23 year old starlet. I get. But at this moment, reading about myself, the blood drained from my body.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Nomi Frye]

And it was one of those relatively rare occasions if you're not a celebrity, when you encounter being gossiped about. It doesn't happen to us that often. You know, thank God. We don't want to know. Or I don't want to know at least. And you know, and I felt like the thing that Bart is talking about and that you quoted in your piece, Alex, of like, oh, I understand what it is to be treated as a kind of like dead piece of material.

[Alex Schwartz]

You felt murdered.

[Nomi Frye]

It's suddenly the kind of like the structure of gossip as like something that might be painful revealed itself to me in that moment.

[Alex Schwartz]

Oh yeah. I mean, it's horribly painful. It's horribly painful because you're assessed, dismissed, and moved on from within seconds. And each one of those steps is bad on its own, but together. It's crazy making. It's crazy making. I think in order to function as people in this world, we all need a sense of privacy that we can just be going about our business basically secure in the fact that other people are not thinking about us all the time.

[Nomi Frye]

Right.

[Alex Schwartz]

And gossip explodes. That critics at large. From the New Yorker. Will be right back.

[Nomi Frye]

Chloe, you know what I think the world really needs? What? Old fashioned.

[Alex Schwartz]

The people Want it.

[Nomi Frye]

The people have asked for it.

[Vincent Cunningham]

The people are getting it.

[Nicole Phelps]

Yes. Everyone's in luck. I'm Nicole Phelps, the director of Vogue Runway, and I'm excited to announce that the run through is coming to Tuesdays. The run through is now going to be twice a week, every Tuesday. Join me and the Vogue Runway team as we dig into the latest fashion news.

[Nomi Frye]

Thursdays will still be Chloe and Shoma talking about the latest in fashion and culture, per usual. And Tuesdays, more fashion, fashion, fashion.

[Nicole Phelps]

The run through with Vogue is available wherever you get your podcasts.

[Alex Schwartz]

We've been talking about gossip, about some of our own experiences with gossip about. I think it's fair to say at this point, based on the evidence so far, our somewhat conflicted feelings about this activity.

[Nomi Frye]

We don't know what to think.

[Alex Schwartz]

We don't know what to think.

[Nomi Frye]

But maybe we'll figure it out over the next, like, I don't know, 25 minutes.

[Alex Schwartz]

Well, that's right. And that's why we're here now to talk about how it shows up in culture. Because, as always, we look to the culture to be our guide.

[Nomi Frye]

We do.

[Alex Schwartz]

What's the earliest example of gossip that you can think of?

[Vincent Cunningham]

You know, I always do this, but, like, all of my sort of antiquity runs through, like the Bible, of course. So, I mean, like, you know, it's like there was a child born. This structure of.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, absolutely. Did you hear?

[Vincent Cunningham]

Did you hear?

[Alex Schwartz]

Have you heard the news? Yeah.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Herod's worried about some. You hide your sons.

[Alex Schwartz]

See, that's even more recent than some of my examples.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Come on.

[Alex Schwartz]

Because that's New Testament with my preteen bullshit. New Testament.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Go ahead.

[Alex Schwartz]

I'm looking at the Old Testament.

[Nomi Frye]

Tell us. Tell us, Alex.

[Alex Schwartz]

I'm looking. I mean, first of all, I'm thinking about all the marriages that were arranged. It's like, Jacob is such a good one. You're gonna love him. No, you can't see him yet. Oh, I have a daughter. She is beautiful. This kind of.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Poor Leah.

[Alex Schwartz]

Poor Leah.

[Nomi Frye]

Poor Leah. We all know I'm talking about Leah. She was spotted by Deuxmoi and called not pre.

[Alex Schwartz]

Exactly. If you don't know what we're talking about, go look at the Old Testament.

[Nomi Frye]

Read Genesis.

[Alex Schwartz]

It's about 20 pages in. I would say it's very, very close to the top. But even closer to the top of Genesis is a lady named Eve. One thing that I thought was interesting when I was researching my gossip piece was how Eve comes up in the world of gossip. Kelsey McKaney, whose book I was in part reviewing was raised fundamentalist Christian and was raised with this idea of gossiping being the woman's sin, that women were particularly susceptible to it and that women's words could be very harmful. And the root of that idea is the first woman herself, Eve, because she essentially listened to gossip from a snake. The snake comes and says, God told you one thing, I'm here to tell you another thing. She thought she would die if she ate the apple. Snake gossips to her. That's not true. And Eve does the thing. She eats the apple. She gains knowledge. She then goes to Adam and says, you do it too. I heard this thing. I did this thing. Now you do it too. So yada, yada, yada. If that hadn't happened, some might say we'd be in Eden right now. Yeah, some might say, Some might say, some might disagree. I might disagree.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Who knows?

[Alex Schwartz]

But Eve has been used as this prototype of loose talk by women for centuries. And then I was looking at other examples from religion, too. Nomi, I'm guessing that you were raised as I was with these ideas of lashon hara. Yes, yes. The Jewish prohibition on gossip, the evil tongue. It means literally, lashon hara.

[Nomi Frye]

Lashon hara means lashon is tongue. Hara is evil, is evil.

[Alex Schwartz]

The evil tongue. And in, I would say, pretty much any organized religion, talking about someone else is not a good thing. And certainly in Judaism, you are not supposed to do it. Even listening to it is bad news.

[Nomi Frye]

Right. You're as guilty if you listen as if you tell is the idea. I believe.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah. One thing I thought was just. If I may just share little factoids with you, because I've been researching this and they've come up. Gossip really starts to turn into a women's thing later on. Like this Eve stuff perhaps is a bit retrospective. Looking back, trying to find a way to say women did some stuff and are bad and we've gotta contain them and control them. But the word gossip meant God, sibling. Originally, this is the origin of the word. It meant someone who you were connected to by baptism.

[Nomi Frye]

Wow.

[Alex Schwartz]

Instead of. And someone who you'd be so close with that you would share intimate details.

[Nomi Frye]

Oh, that's crazy.

[Alex Schwartz]

You talk. It's a good thing. My gossip is a good thing. It's someone who I wanna chat. And in the case of women, it often was a woman who attended a birth. So there are all these anecdotes about women chatting, because guess what? The men didn't go to births. They weren't in the room. So you could say some Stuff you might not otherwise say. And that, I think, is a really positive thing. And people who didn't think that were men, they didn't like it. And so the word takes on this negative connotation, Gossip, something women do. Idle chatter, tittle, tattle. Samuel Johnson, Dr. Johnson's dictionary uses this more negative connotation. So it starts to change over time.

[Nomi Frye]

As you say, Alex, gossip is everywhere. But I was somehow much like yourself. It takes me back to the world of childhood and kind of like thinking about gossip as kind of like an adult's thing that has something to do usually with sex or with relationships. I remember watching the movie Grease. Of course, Stalker Channing is Rizzo. Okay? Rizzo, the bad girl, right? She misses her period, thinks she's pregnant, and she tells one of the other pink ladies, Marty, they're in the bathroom. They're having a chat. We see Marty immediately going and telling her boyfriend. He immediately goes and tells his friend. You see them all kind of leaning and whispering to each other like, rizzo has a bun in the oven. Rizzo has a bun in the oven.

[Vincent Cunningham]

A bun in the oven.

[Nomi Frye]

And by the time Rizzo's boyfriend hears this, you know, at the end of the chain of, like, 10 people who quickly tell each other this piece of gossip, he meets Rizzo and is like, what's going on? You pregnant, Rizzo?

[Vincent Cunningham]

I hear you're knocked up. You do, huh? Yeah.

[Alex Schwartz]

Boy, good news really travels fast. Why don't you tell me about it? What's it to you? I thought I might be able to do something.

[Vincent Cunningham]

You did enough.

[Nomi Frye]

She's kind of, like, okay with it. And that reminded me of something you noted in your review, Alex. Where you were talking about two Edith Wharton books. There is the House of mirth from 1905, you know, in which the failing Lily Bart goes downward and downward. As a kind of single woman who.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Just gave her a Trump moniker.

[Alex Schwartz]

I was about to say.

[Nomi Frye]

I just want to make sure.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Please continue.

[Nomi Frye]

She's gossiped about by her frenemy, Bertha Dorsett, who is trying to kind of COVID her own affairs with men. And so, because Lily is powerless, penniless, powerless, that affects her very badly. She's shamed. She's driven out of society. However, Alex, as you note, eight years later, Wharton wrote A Custom of the country, where the heroine, Undine Sprague, is certainly the subject of much, much gossip. But interestingly, she is shameless. She knows that to be seen to be in the center of things, which is her constant drive, means that you'll Also be talked shit about. And you call her the Kim Kardashian of the early 20th century. The acceptance of being gossiped about. And when I think about celebrities who constantly are getting gossiped about, that is part and parcel of, I guess, being a successful public person. You know you're gonna have haters.

[Alex Schwartz]

Vincent, how about you? Do you have a favorite gossiper or gossip example?

[Vincent Cunningham]

I have a new favorite I've been reading recently zora Neale Hurston's 1939 novel Moses, man of the Mountain, which is a sort of like retelling of the Exodus story with some sort of like African American folk underpinnings to it. One of the sort of innovations of this novel is Jochebed and Amram, the parents of Moses. They're not supposed to have a baby boy. They put him in the river. The biblical story is that Pharaoh's daughter is the one who finds him in the river. In this telling by Hurston, Moses sister Miriam is sent to watch his travel down the river and to report back, did he make it? Was he swallowed by an alligator? Who knows? Miriam falls asleep and she wakes up and sees Pharaoh's daughter and her sort of court from afar. She sees Pharaoh's daughter notice something in the water, and it's never clear what that thing is. But she, ashamed that she fell asleep on her lookout, invents the story that Moses was drawn from the river by Pharaoh's daughter. It's left kind of unclear, even to the reader. It could be, but we don't know. What I like about it though, is that it sort of illuminates the two sides of rumors. One is the truth behind the idea of secret is that there is a truth, right? They had a male child and allowed him to be born and did not kill him. That's the truth that they're trying to keep from Pharaoh. It's a secret. But then there's the lie that Miriam comes back and spreads all around like, oh, man, my brother is now like the prince in Egypt. And so the hope that this lie comes to you can think of it as like a conspiracy. Like Qanon is based like this, but we got a man on the inside, don't worry. This sort of interplay between lie and truth, both of which can be funneled into gossip, right? This is the thing that we, like, don't like to talk about with gossip, is that it can just be a lie.

[Alex Schwartz]

Totally.

[Vincent Cunningham]

It can be a secret that is being brought to light, but it can also just be a lie.

[Nomi Frye]

That's so True.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And so these two relationships to truth that gossip is always kind of dancing between is really artfully kind of positioned in the opening chapters of Moses, man of the Mountain, Zara Nel Hurston.

[Alex Schwartz]

Mm. I love that. It's so true. It can just be a lie. Yeah. Look at the world we're living in today. It can just be a lie. Something we should say to each other all the time.

[Nomi Frye]

All the time.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah. And that can have to do with something very personal or it could have to do with something much bigger. Rumor spreads. Rumor is, of course, gossip's like more developed cousin. I guess my example, it's the novel Emma by Jane Austen. And the thing about Emma, there's so many things to say about this book, but Emma is the kind of gossip who thinks that she is telling the truth, but is often making something up and she's not fully aware that she is. So one specific instance of this which is so cringe inducing.

[Nomi Frye]

Oh, no.

[Alex Schwartz]

That to read it now just makes your skin crawl. She's at a dinner with this guy, Frank Churchill. He's visiting. And so he, of course, is immediately the talk of the town. And he's charming and he's cute and he's flirty, but kind of on the right side of it. And there's another newish character in town, Jane Fairfax. They're all at dinner. Recently, Jane has gotten a gift of a piano. It's absolutely shocking. It's as shocking as if a herd of elephants had just been delivered. This is not the kind of thing that happens in Highbury. And no one knows who it came from. And Emma is sitting talking to Frank at dinner, and she spins out this whole. They're talking about it, they're gossiping, and she spins out this whole story. Jane's best friend, who's also the girl she grew up with, has recently gotten married. But maybe Jane and that woman's husband were actually the ones in love. And maybe he's the one who sent the piano. He had to marry her cause she had the money. But now she's sending. Little does she know. And here's a huge spoiler. Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax are secretly engaged. Nobody knows this, so he sent the piano. And Emma is sitting there gossiping to him about something he knows much better. He knows the whole truth. And she thinks she's being amusing and charming and delightful. And it just makes your heart stop in that moment. Because all the things that are fun about gossip, the speculating, the being in cahoots when someone has information that the other doesn't have and that someone has reason to hide it.

[Nomi Frye]

It's so embarrassing.

[Alex Schwartz]

You can very quickly be exposed for a F from parchment scrolls to smartphones. Do we gossip differently now than we used to? That's on critics at Large from the New Yorker, coming up next.

[Alex Goldman]

Hi, I'm Alex Goldman, host of the Hyper Fixed podcast. Each week we take listeners problems and try to solve them for them. Problems like I'm 30 and I'm scared to drive in New York or why can't I adjust the volume of my car stereo when I'm in reverse. We also solve non car related problems. If you have a problem, not only will we fix it, we'll expose the hidden systems that caused that problem in the first place. That's the Hyperfixed podcast from Radiotopia. Find it wherever you find podcasts [e-mail].

[Alex Schwartz]

Nomi when you brought up those Edith Wharton examples, eight years between those books. In the first one, gossip is just a force of destruction. If you are gossip, and that is true not just in the literary sense, in the way that Wharton is doing her book, but it's true in the society she's describing. If you're a woman and you're gossiped about in a way that implies that you have in any way compromised your virtue, you're done. And so for years, for years and years, and by years I mean literally centuries, gossip is this controlling force from the powers of society to regulate. And yet eight years later, we get the shameless undine Sprague who wants to be gossiped about. To me, that is her salient characteristic. She comes in, she, she arrives in New York from the Midwest with her parents. She is looking at Town Talk, this social gossip magazine, and she wants to be in it. That to me is the entire transition of gossip from time immemorial to where we are in the present.

[Nomi Frye]

Right.

[Alex Schwartz]

We are at a time now, I think, where more people than ever before want to be seen, want to be talked about, want to be the subject of gossip. We have a whole class of them, celebrities. And I'm curious about how technology has amplified and changed this. Like I would argue, quite a bit. I'm thinking back to an absolutely classic scene of modern cinema, television, the opening of Gossip Girl, which I would argue is a totally Wartonian text. It's all about New York society, how it regulates, how it self regulates, how fortunes rise and fall, how money works within it, how relationships give you power or take it away. It's the Edith Wharton of our time. It's Gossip Girl. And at the opening of the television show, the original one, Serena van der Woodsen is arriving at Grand Central station. She's been out of the city for some time. And there is Gossip Girl's voiceover.

[G]

Hey, Upper east siders. Gossip Girl here. And I have the biggest news ever. One of my many sources, melanie91, sends us guess this. Spotted at Grand Central, bags in hand, Serena van der Woodsen was it. Only a year ago, our it girl mysteriously disappeared for, quote, boarding school. And just as suddenly, she's back. Don't believe me? See for yourselves. Lucky for us, melanie91 sent proof. Thanks for the photo, Mel.

[Alex Schwartz]

And the camera pans to the other high school girl who's lifting up her pre smartphone phone to eagerly snap a photo of Serena to prove that she was there. Suddenly we have this new era where anyone is fodder for public conversation. Just being in public makes you potentially fodder for gossip. And I feel like we don't have a well developed sense or hygiene maybe around that kind of public gossip because it's so encouraged. Like stuff like Deuxmoi, what Nomi was talking about before. Send pictures, send tips, send all of this. Put it on Twitter, put it wherever, put it on your Instagram, get it out there. I do worry. I know I'm like always coming on here and moralizing about the Internet, but like, I do worry about a world in which that privacy is compromised for everybody and you are just potentially gossip fodder for millions.

[Nomi Frye]

No, absolutely. I mean, I think even, you know, someone does something funny on the subway, right? Texting something, and the person behind them can see the text and takes a picture and posts it. And all of these things, I think the ethics of them are very muddy, right? Like, is everyone fair, fair game? And in the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, of course, the Real Housewives is, is. It's all built on gossip, right? And the line between private and public is very. Is again, very muddy. But there are certain things that they want to keep to themselves, whether it's like financial insolvency, whether it's an affair. We recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of Real House of the Beverly Hills dinner in Amsterdam episode where Lisa Rinna is fighting with Kim Richards. And Kim intimating on camera that she knows some gossip about Lisa Rinna's husband. And Lisa Rinna getting up and smashing her wine glass on the table and says, you don't talk about my husband. You don't bring up my husband for everybody to know.

[Alex Schwartz]

You better watch what you talk about Me or everybody will know. Never. Everybody will know.

[Vincent Cunningham]

My husband.

[Nomi Frye]

Everybody will know.

[Alex Schwartz]

He doesn't understand. Stamp that. Average. Never go after me. Average.

[Nomi Frye]

This conflict is still remembered 10 years later. And the whole kind of line is what is fair game, what can be gossiped about and what is off, off limits.

[Alex Schwartz]

Vincent, do you have feelings about or thoughts even, even better about the way that gossip functions in an age where anything can just circulate to so many people?

[Vincent Cunningham]

There are a couple of things that kind of arise from this. One is, as you say, like the sort of rise of recording devices makes. I mean, one crass thing that we don't have to spend that long on is like, is the celebrity sex tape. I heard that so and so has a sex tape with so and so. And sometimes this is produced the sort of evidentiary nature of many of. Or like the leaked phone call, the receipts, the screenshot text, the receipts.

[Nomi Frye]

The receipts.

[Vincent Cunningham]

The way. Yes. These things that also a huge thing.

[Nomi Frye]

In Real Housewives where receipts are pulled out.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Nomi Frye]

And then here's what she told me.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah. Is this true or not? Right. So the evidentiary nature of many of our technologies leads to a lot of this. And I was thinking as you were speaking, Naomi, that like in my. Every once in a while watching of the Real Housewives, there is almost like a Greek chorus that is the blogs. The blogs are saying. So all of a sudden, sometimes there's information that comes in sideways into the narrative because it's bubbling up on the Internet to such an extent that it has to therefore then be acknowledged on the text of the show. So there's something.

[Nomi Frye]

And also who leaked to the blogs, who leaked to the podcast.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Right. And because blogs are this informal economy of information, let's call it this rubs up against another of the sort of tensions of gossip, which is the line between gossip and news. Sometimes gossip becomes news. Right. The recent example, which has become sufficiently sort of out there that we can discuss it is the way that several outlets that are sub news wrote about Barack Obama and Michelle Obama potentially being splitsville. Splitsville. This was written about on the Internet. People talked about it. If you searched it on Twitter, x whatever, you would see lots of discourse about it. The Obamas have pretty pointedly not talked about these rumors, but they have kind of tacitly rebutted them. They've been releasing affectionate photos, a hand across a table, statements which of course, then these. These items then get dissected in turn. It's a strange, strange thing.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah. The other thing about the Obama example is one. Okay. Public figures. But two, this is the key thing where gossip is divided from rumor and rumor is divided from conspiracy. A divorce is a serious business, but it's an appropriate subject of gossip in 2025. In 1905 could have ruined everything. 2025. Okay, okay. I mean, it brings me back to this idea, which I think is important in thinking about gossip as gossip as a regulatory force. There is an argument. Kelsey McKinney discusses it in her book. Many other people have discussed it as well, that gossip can be an empowering force because information can be shared that might not otherwise be shared among people who are vulnerable to power, to power's abuses. And the kind of key recent example of this is the Whisper Network MeToo situation. That at the start of the MeToo movement in 2017, things that had been whispered about privately. Oh, so and so is mistreats, women. So and so is abusive. Whatever it might be, in whether someone's private world or in a big industry like the cinema or like media. Those things spurred on by the kind of social explosion of people standing up in that ice barticas way and saying, me too. These things became public. But I'm curious what you guys think about that. You know, can gossip be a virtue in an information sharing sense? Do you think of it that way ever? Does this MeToo example resonate?

[Vincent Cunningham]

But this goes to the sort of pronoun business that we were talking about with Bart. The third person is often a problem. And the key about me too, is that it was the first person this happened to. Me I think about like a figure that I think clarifies or maybe troubles some of this, which is Linda Tripp.

[Nomi Frye]

Huh?

[Alex Schwartz]

Ooh, wow. Linda Tripp is on the pod.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Is she a bad feminist gossip? Is she a good feminist gossip?

[Alex Schwartz]

I'm gonna say something crazy, which is for the young. So I hope you're listening to our podcast. Briefly explain who Linda Tripp is or was.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Linda Tripp was a confidant of Monica. She was a civil servant who was a confidant of Monica Lewinsky, who was a White House intern who, in a fit of misery, really, over the President's callous treatment of her thereafter.

[Nomi Frye]

He was a bit of a fuck boy.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yes, the President was.

[Alex Schwartz]

He was a fuck president.

[Vincent Cunningham]

The President. He was a bit of a fuckboy. Among other things, Lewinsky told. Confess about. Confessed, confided in Tripp. What happened to her? Tripp divulged, and it became the investigation into Bill Clinton about these matters. She was told something in confidence that was definitely bad, but she's kind of a bad guy because she secretly recorded and then made it everybody's business. But it's not your business. So it was never the case that Lewinsky was like, I want this to be known. Even though now she owns it in the this really, I think, wonderful way. Monica Lewinsky never got to say me too.

[Alex Schwartz]

You know, you're bringing to my mind another word. There are all these. They're not synonyms. And that's what I just love the English language for this. All these words that are so proximate but don't mean exactly the same thing. Tattling. Cause tattling is a kind of gossip. But with tattling, the power dynamic is also implied. You're going to someone in power cause you have information and you want to get something out of it. Maybe just a pat on the head. Pat on.

[Nomi Frye]

Snitches get stitches.

[Alex Schwartz]

There you go. Sometimes, not always.

[Nomi Frye]

But again, it's so true that context matters.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Nomi Frye]

And we might want to talk about, like, what are ethics of gossip for us? When you're talking about people, you know, people that the people you're talking to know, it's very important, I think, to have your own kind of like principles.

[Alex Schwartz]

I totally agree.

[Nomi Frye]

To hold onto.

[Alex Schwartz]

I have basically a Michael Pollan hygiene of gossip that I've decided on.

[Nomi Frye]

Okay.

[Alex Schwartz]

Gossip, not too much. Mainly with two or three other people.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah. And the people you gossip with, like eat food.

[Alex Schwartz]

Not too much. Mainly plants. That's what I'm saying.

[Nomi Frye]

Yeah.

[Alex Schwartz]

You didn't do it. Do it intimately.

[Nomi Frye]

Intimately, yeah. The people you gossip with need to be vetted. It has to be people you trust. And another thing that's important, if someone asks you not to share something, be a vault.

[Alex Schwartz]

Be a vault.

[Nomi Frye]

Be an absolute vault.

[Alex Schwartz]

This has been Critics at Large. Our senior producer is Rhiannon Corby and Alex Barish is our consulting editor. Our executive producer is Stephen Valentino. Conde Nast's head of global audio is Chris Bannon. Alexis Quadrato composed our theme music and we had engineering help today from Pran Bandy with mixing by Mike Kutchman. You can find every episode of Critics at [e-mail] critics. See you next week.

[Alex Goldman]

You come to the New Yorker Radio Hour for conversations that go deeper with people you really want to hear from, whether it's Bruce Springsteen or Questlove or Olivia Rodrigo, Liz Cheney or the godfather of artificial intelligence, Geoffrey Hinton or some of my extraordinarily well informed colleagues at the New Yorker. So join us every week on the New Yorker Radio Hour wherever you listen.

[Nomi Frye]

To podcasts from prx.