WHY CAN'T WE STOP GOSSIPING?
In light of the February 25 incident at Maison Blanche night club in Beirut, involving two young entrepreneurs, Antoun Sehnaoui & Mazen El Zein, we ought to wonder about the "evil and unlawful," or "of poor quality" narratives that followed such incident, where all the cursing addressed toward the so called culprit before even he got judged remain puzzling.
In recent years, researchers have turned to the study of gossip—our predilection for talking about people who are not present.
Why is news about others so irresistible?
As it turns out, gossip serves a useful social function in bonding group members together. We are social creatures like wolves. We hunt in packs to weaken individuals (to see if they are fit) and either physically or psychological try to over power individuals (who are weak) and take them down.
All through my life, since the day i learned reading, I always found myself puzzled over the 24/7 coverage of people such as Paris Hilton, Tara Reid, Nicole Richie and all in between, who are “celebrities” for no apparent reason other than we know who they are--if we happen to know who they are. And yet, covering these so-caled 'Celebs' is a non-stop habit, simply because people/readers are obviously tuning in with a state of delirium barely understandable.
This preoccupation with the lives of others, is a by-product of society of which its members have big time issues with themselves. Thus, it appears that we are hardwired to be fascinated by gossip, wealthy people, to say the least. And here again, the Maison Blanche story comes to mind again, for all the meanness and cheap talk opportunists have jumped into to ruin a wealthy, healthy, successful young CEO, everyone would dream to be in his chair.
It is difficult to define exactly what Gossip is...
Most researchers agree that the Gossip practice involves talk about people who are not present and that this talk is relaxed, informal and entertaining. Typically the topic of conversation also concerns information that we can make moral judgments about. Gossip appears to be pretty much the same wherever it takes place.
Why does private information about other people represent such an irresistible temptation for us? It is an undeniable fact that is pretty unusual to see any individual walk away from a juicy story about one of his or her acquaintances, and many of us have firsthand experience with the difficulty of keeping spectacular news about someone's else a secret. Although everyone seems to detest a person who is known as a “gossiper”; though, it appears to be a national hobby, especially in a country as tiny as Lebanon, where any name rings a bell to anyone...And boom,,,,the tongue suddenly rolls, becoming longer, harder, bitter, if not lethal. Gossiping can become worse witch hunting or lynching.
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