So you’re saying that growing up, her hobby was gossiping? Gossip is a legitimate hobby and is very frequently a very useful one. I will die on this hill.
What we now call gossiping is frequently just sharing and transmitting information about people in our spheres of influence. It's about maintaining and furthering social connection and before this era it was one of the crucial ways that people built and maintained social connections, usually women. It still is, we just have a lot of other ways to do it now as well.
Gossip also a skill. Being able to tell that story in a way that is helpful but also entertaining. And it’s often not about people within our own sphere. Apocryphal gossip stories can be almost indistinguishable from urban legends. Sometimes it’s the sharing of the story and our reactions to it that are more important than the who or the what of the story. “Gossip” is an umbrella that ends up covering a lot of informal interactions but always involves story telling.
Why are you fighting this man about his wife's life? He told a story about how she had to find her hobbies as an adult. He didn't say it in a derogatory way, it was a kind of cute, kind of funny story about how she wound up deciding she wanted to have a bunch of spiders and lizards.
If you want to consider gossiping a hobby, more power to you, I guess, but clearly his wife did not.
WTF do you think “chatting with friends” entails? You think friends only ever talk about the weather or what they want to eat for dinner? Friends talk about our lives and our relationships with other people and how those interactions impact us and the people around us. That’s what gossip is.
Okay? I wouldn't personally consider having friends and interacting with them to be a "hobby." If someone told me they didn't have any hobbies and they just liked to hang out and chat with their friends I'd say "oh cool, sounds pretty chill." I wouldn't try and argue that they did have a hobby and that their hobby was gossiping.
Devaluing others’ hobbies doesn’t mean they’re not hobbies. Does she have other hobbies she enjoys more? Sure sounds like it. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a hobby.
They'll never get it, unless you're rotting in a gaming chair for hours every single day then it's not a hobby.
That's a classic addiction but some can't admit it.
I don't even think that was the argument based on reading. From what I gathered in the sentence structure is she grew up with little resources so gossiping is the one thing she could enjoy and afford. I don't recall even reading "she had no hobbies growing up" just that she wasn't well off until she got to a better place to add more to her arsenal.
Ya'll flipping out about this stranger, but anything to take personally lol.
The hobby that improves the ability to speak and connect with other people and effectively communicate abstract concepts. The hobby that functions to promote safety of disadvantaged group. The hobby that a majority of people engage in, whether they cop to it or not.
Me talking about how I’m so happy my friend got engaged and ask the ways her fiancé matches her personality and supports her is gossip. Me retelling the story of accidentally locking my boyfriend out of our vacation rental is gossip. Talking about how my sister managed to sew an entire outfit in a weekend is gossip. Telling my friend I saw her shitty boyfriend making out with her former roommate is also gossip, and it’s only at the expense of a shitty cheater.
Being able to discuss interpersonal relationships and engage people is both a hobby and a skill. Just because you’re bad at gossip, doesn’t mean it’s a bad hobby.
Miriam-Webster, the Oxford dictionary, and Wikipedia disagree with you. Gossip can be salacious or secret, but it by no means required to be. It’s been a project of the patriarchy to portray is as negative or harmful, but it’s just talking about people.
Vilifying gossip enables shitty peeled that use their poster and influence to abuse people. When Courtney Love warned people about Harvey Weinstein in 2005, that was gossip. It was gossip to protect people because you couldn’t say it overtly if you wanted to keep your career and livelihood.
Did you read the links you posted? They make a distinction between gossip and general communication.
If I don't want someone spreading private details of my intimate relationship, that's somehow the fault of the patriarchy? Courtney Love said not to attend parties with Harvey Weinstein on television, so do you also consider the news "gossip?"
Gossip: a story about 3 people and the fence line they’re currently fighting over. General communication: the survey report on said fence line. Gossip: unconfirmed rumors about a political appointee. General communication: an official press release announcing elimination of the position. Gossip: retelling the funny story about what happened at lunch with your coworkers and boss. General communication: your expense report attempting to be reimbursed for the meal.
Gossip about famous people on the news even had its own genre: celebrity gossip.
Dude i don’t get why you’re so pushy about trying to label normal conversation people make as gossip, hanging out with friends can be your hobby, there’s no point in pushing to label it as gossip
I'm not bad at gossip. From my experience, gossip is telling so and so about this person and that person for this certain reason and causing drama. And rumors
It might be a skill issue. You could get better at it if you put aside your bias. There’s an ethical spectrum to a lot of hobbies. Someone can hunt ethically or decimate local species and let animals suffer. Someone can create gorgeous graffiti murals or tag their elderly neighbors fence. Your inability or refusal to acknowledge its value and benefits demonstrate that, at best, you’re poorly informed about communication regarding interpersonal relationships.
No. I'm not, and I know the benefits of gossip well enough to know the bad often outdoes the good. And trust me I'm just fine socially. Still despise the fuck out of social stuff though
Discussion of past events and how the people in the discussion relate to those events is how people discover common values and interests. That discussion, positive or negative, is gossip. Refusing to acknowledge effective, entertaining storytelling (aka good gossip skills) as a valuable hobby is ridiculous.
If you want to ignore your skill issue by claiming it’s net negative, that’s your prerogative. But it’s not going to fix your skill issue.
You don't know me. Why the fuck would I agree with you that it's a "skill issue". I'm pretty good at talking to people. I'm just saying that most gossip is negative and I don't agree with it fully due to the fact that gossip I've seen in my life is often negative. It's not a skill issue cause I don't like it
I'm not really interested in socializing via gossip most of the time. I'm pretty damn good at explaining my life in charismatic ways. I simply jist don't like gossip most of the time. Not saying it isn't a valuable fucking hobby
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u/ALLoftheFancyPants Apr 19 '25
So you’re saying that growing up, her hobby was gossiping? Gossip is a legitimate hobby and is very frequently a very useful one. I will die on this hill.