i cannot emphasize enough how important it is to have gossipy bitchy littl pirvate group chats or discord servers with like 4 people in them whose stated purpose is posting “new kind of guy” or “this reddit post is so fuckin dumb” or “i got into a fight on twitter today look at this idiot’s reply” so your homies can still see it and laugh and back you up but more importantly, so you are not tempted to post these kind of things on main
# you can also practice just having self control in private in general # for example i do my best to never shit talk actual people ever # i can guarantee you that if you never form the habit of talking about anyone behind their back you will not do that.
seriously, there really is no reason to gossip, the whole “everyone does it” rings hard like all those “everyone spanks their kids” bullshit. Yeah they do, and you still shouldn’t do that. Pick up a weird hobby like organizing bricks by color in minecraft like the rest of us.
Mmmm, gonna back op on this one.
I kind of wonder what you’re picturing when you hear this, because what I’m picturing is stuff like critiquing the fanfic we read way more frankly than we ever would to an author’s face.
“Gossip” has a number of important social functions, and like any other social interaction it is a tool that can be used in good or bad ways.
We discuss positive and negative interactions we’ve had later and in private with our friend groups because this helps us process them. It can be a vibe check (“does it seem like this person was acting out of line towards me?”) or an analysis (“why do you think they did that? what do you think I should have done?”) or data compilation (“is this a pattern? has this happened to anyone else?”) or data sharing (“hey this alarming interaction happened, watch out”) or just venting to channel emotions into a place where they’re safe to have (“friend is processing bad thing and I’m upset on their behalf, so I need do my own processing somewhere else”).
If you can’t complain about your boss to your friends, how do you even figure out what bad boss behavior looks like?
And when some stranger’s being a dick on social media it is usually infinitely healthier and more constructive to go chat that argument out with your friends than to let yourself get sucked into fighting with someone very likely more interested in hurting people than listening.
Figuring out which social circles are the most beneficial places to have which discussions is a huge part of figuring out how to navigate the world and building yourself the support network you need.
