Re: the gossip magazines that line the checkout shelves/aisles in stores across the nation, along with celebrity-gossip websites:
ISTM that in order for gossip to be ‘enjoyable,’ the information that is contained therein has to be actually be factually true - otherwise, what’s the point?
Now, some of the gossip is indeed true, no doubt - or even if exaggerated/distorted, still contains some truth - but plenty of the rest of gossip is flat-out lying and made-up stuff. What is the fun in reading a juicy tidbit of gossip if you know there’s a high chance it’s just BS spun out of thin air?
(Example: Years ago, a gossip mag’s headlines read to the effect of: “Medical Bombshell: Kate Middleton is infertile; incapable of bearing children” and then, mere months later, a gossip mag reads to the effect, “Kate is pregnant, royal family expecting child!” Why doesn’t that ruin the fun of the gossip-mag readers?)
Even in an industry like gossip, wouldn’t it add to quality or readership if the mags carefully vetted their gossip so that it only contained true content - doesn’t truth make gossip juicier, not less?
If truth is so important then why are we in our current political environment? Politicians are lying with every breath and people seem to eat it up, demand more, and call those who demand truth traitors.
Gossip at heart is confirming that other people are worse than you. They do worse things, or are going through worse times, or have worse morals, or worse taste, or worse anything that can be compared. It’s a means of self-affirmation. But it’s extremely short-lived and must be constantly renewed. That’s why truth or falsity make little difference. Yesterday’s gossip is not merely disposable; it is disposed. Each day gossip is reset and disseminated afresh. An entire industry is required to service the need for gossip. They have neither the time, the resources, nor the inclination to ensure that the gossip is true. You might as well ask why yesterday’s food doesn’t satisfy you today.
I think part of it is that readers of gossip think it would be interesting if it were true, and also that they enjoy the rich and famous having troubles bigger then theirs. If the gossip mags printed only true stories, they’d go out of business due to lack of content.
Plus there are enough credulous stupid people for them to have big circulations.
Mencken said approximately “no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public” a statement as true today as back then.
People don’t want to hear gossip for its own sake; they want to hear it so they can spread it further. If you’re the first to tell everyone in the break room that Kate is infertile, then there’s some status in it for you when others start saying so, but if everyone else already knew it when you say it, then it doesn’t do you any good. And this is regardless of whether it’s true or not: What matters is what people know, not what actually is so. So there’s an incentive to be the first in your social circle to grab the new issue of the tabloid off the shelves.
I worked with a guy at Meijer who thought all the tabloid magazine stuff was true. I kind of laughed for a minute when he mentioned one and I said, “Yeah, none of that stuff is true, right?” He told me with a straight face, “I believe all of it.”
People enjoy stories. They don’t even care if the people in them are obviously fictional, like the characters in Star Wars. Juicy gossip about a real person isn’t all that much different than in-depth conversations about the Luke-Han-Leia love triangle before we knew how it all turned out. As long as the tabloid sticks to relatively believable actions for that [del]character[/del] celebrity, people can still suspend disbelief and enjoy the story.
This, exactly. People are dumb and want instant gratification. Much of it is so people can feel smug and superior about their own morality and poor people like to hate on rich celebs because it feels good. But those good feelings pass very quickly, and the next fix is needed. It’s a powerful drug for the users of it.
There’s gazillions of dollars to be made off of it. It is a dirty, gross business, and I often wonder myself what kind of soulless people work in that industry. It’s like they lose all sense that they are making up fake stories about very real people who yes, may make loads of money to entertain us, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t entitled to privacy when they aren’t working.
The gossip industry made untold millions off the Evil Angelina/Good Girl Jennifer narrative by making each woman out to be a caricature. As for celebrity divorces, the gossip rags know that if the headline constantly screams “Break up!” “Splitsville” for year after year, that there’s a decent chance it may one day be fact, and then they can say they reported it first.
Rags also print inflammatory headlines hoping the celeb may actually contact them with a cease & desist statement so the mag can then claim they got an exclusive and they will then print that. :rolleyes:
I admire the stars who never respond, no matter what. It must be hard in some cases, especially when they print stories about their young children, but some celebs know that it is the equivalent of feeding a troll. Personally it would send me into a rage if I saw my kid on the cover of In Touch. :mad::mad:
Some celebrities know there is big business in hating them and they are powerless to do anything about it, so the only thing they can do is not participate in it, and that is admirable.
For the record, I am NOT talking about famous-for-nothing types who will do anything for attention.
It would, but doing that takes time, money and trusted sources. If you can pay someone $50 to write an article that someone is pregnant or can’t get pregnant or whatever, and people will buy it, why spend hundreds or thousands paying off local cops or hospital staff or “a source close to the family” plus vetting the source, getting a photog to grab some pics (if applicable), paying someone to write the article and doing it all before the other website can do it.
(FYI, I have no idea what the real costs are, I made them up)
There are real ‘gossip’ websites, TV shows, magazines etc. They’re just not quite as fantastical as the fake ones. For example, you can put money on just about everything on TMZ being correct. I believe my sister keeps an eye on people . com for the news celebrity gossip and it’s supposed to be as reliable as TMZ.
I think another reason is timing. If you make something up that has no basis in reality, you have a good bit of time to print it. OTOH, if you take your time to carefully vet all the info and make sure it’s 100% true, everyone already knows by the time it’s on the shelves. In that case, you need to have a full, well written article or interview, not just a headline and a few sentences.
And another thing, since most of today’s Hollywood gossip is unsatisfying smoke & mirrors, it is all the more reason to turn to Old Hollywood for the strongest tabloid tea.
Read up on the true stories of people like Jean Tierney, Lana Turner, Thelma Todd and Vivien Leigh (and many more) if you want truly compelling you-can’t-make-this-up levels of gossip.
Not based on the biggest gossips I’ve met. Their enjoyment came from being able to make themselves the center of a group by coming up with scandalous falsehoods, and from the scandal itself. Bonus points if they could make other people react as if the news were true.
Damnit.
Are we sure we’re not talking about the current US government? This sounds way too much like their take on information management.
You’re talking about events that happened more than 55 years ago to people whose names mostly wouldn’t mean anything to anyone today. At this point, it’s no longer gossip but history. The stories about the people you mentioned aren’t designed to scandalize a bunch of gullible, self-righteous rubes but rather illustrate how society’s mores have changed and, in the cases of Tierney and Leigh, how clueless the medical profession was in diagnosing and treating mental illness during the early and mid 20th century.