The evolution of gossip: How dishing got dirty

Gossip has always been with us, says author Joseph Epstein, but the internet has made it faster and meaner

Back in the day, most gossip was just tittered about among friends, writes Joseph Epstein. But today, many details of our private lives are gossiped about online, for everyone to see.
(Image credit: H. ARMSTRONG ROBERTS/ClassicStock/Corbis)

GOSSIP HAS LONG had ferociously bad press. But the major rap against it, that it is trivial, is no longer the main thing to be said about it, if ever it was. For gossip has come to play a larger and larger role in public life in ways that can thrum with significance and odd side effects.

Until the invention and widespread use of the Internet, gossip could be conveniently divided between private and public spheres. Private gossip, the engine of English novels from Jane Austen to Barbara Pym, is largely restricted to include friends (and enemies) and acquaintances. Public gossip, which has been around since the printing press, is about people who appear in print or on radio or television, broadcast for the titillation of the larger world. To qualify for public gossip, one formerly had to have achieved some measure of fame or notoriety. But with the advent of the Internet, one can arrive at notoriety without having first achieved anything. And like the distinction between gossip and news, that between the private and the public has become blurred in the digital age.

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