#05: gossip, dissected (with love)
GRAB A GLASS
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🥂 what’s on the glass: today we’re sipping on gossip.
ahhh, the lovely tinkling sound of good old gossip, the sparkling hints that someone you know is about to confide in you with sweet information about a stranger in their life. about how they did (or didn’t) something, how they overcame it (or didn’t), how they’re tangled up in a puzzle trying to find their way out of a situation, or how someone else excelled at it. the joy of knowing that the couple got back together, or that someone had to do x, y, z before they got that job interview. how they’re having a baby. how they travelled the world (with what money, for how long), and the thrill of sipping in those details about someone completely irrelevant to your existence, yet somehow crucial to the infinite plots you twist around in your mind about how life unfolds itself. should they have done that? should they not have? suddenly, there’s a need to use words like totally, absolutely, LITERALLY, shockingly, absurdly, insanely, lovely. that is the majestic, glittery, zesty curvature of life that absolutely amazes me. and for that, we’re toasting with champagne.
but before i try to convince you of how gossip has been working for me (especially in times like these), i want to talk about wine. more specifically, champagne. (btw, did you know that champagne can only be called champagne if it was made in champagne, france? everything else is just sparkling wine, but that’s a gossip for another day). champagne is one of those drinks we save for special occasions. there has to be a reason to open a bottle. and just like a good gossip, there’s a right time and place for it. we have champagne with people we love, we gossip with people we love. (although, i’m guilty of being drawn to people’s loud gossip behind me on the subway, the power of accessing a small glimpse into the lives of total strangers is thrilling. i get to imagine their faces, only to stand up, see how they actually look, and win or lose a silent bet with myself.)
champagne is also associated with luxury, something rare, saved for last, for the best, and often quite expensive. which, in many ways, is exactly like a good gossip. gossip is a luxury we share with loved ones, but it can also be just as expensive if done with the wrong intention, hateful judgment, or, mostly, lack of self-love. like commenting on someone’s body, hair, or skin (by far one of the worst kinds of gossip, not okay, not cute, pls don’t do that). or trying to villainize someone for choosing a path you wouldn’t have. that’s not gossip, that’s projection.
i’ve recently been hooked on emma chamberlain. to be honest, i first found out she existed because a few years ago, starbucks had just stopped selling lavender matcha as they entered their summer drink season, and chamberlain coffee was the only one selling it. plus, their branding and design were so catchy, i gave it a try, and now it’s my favorite ever(!!!) for when i’m in a phase where i’m a little over coffee and need a break from having my teeth look brown. one of these days, i made my matcha and realized i had never actually watched or known anything about emma, even though she’s been a hot youtuber for years. all i knew was her coffee brand. i gave it a try and played a random episode where she talks for forty minutes about how she never really stuck with a hobby. she shares how she hated the things she hated, admired her cousins’ hobbies, tried to mimic them, and reflected on the perks of being a kid without a fixed passion. the beauty of trying things without commitment, not for productivity, but for the joy of exploring as a kid.
it felt like emma picked up a pencil, and as she talked, she was scribbling her memories, and i saw myself in those scribbles. it felt weird, poetic, emotional. and for the first time in a long while, something i consumed online made me feel something other than fear or sadness.
following my fascination with her, i did a little background check. i landed on her reddit page, where someone posted that they were done with her being silent on current events (hint: this was two weeks ago). they said she doesn’t use her influence to speak up about things that matter. and that struck me. suddenly, i felt like i had to choose a side (do i agree or not?). is emma a bad person? entitled? just another face of the influencer bs we see every day? but then i paused. how sad that everything has to be serious now. we’ve forgotten how to just consume entertainment and culture for what it is. how exhausting to have your worth judged by how serious you are about life. what i love most about emma is that her meandering, nowhere-leading talk makes me feel like a little bug in a room where people are being real and raw and gossiping a little.
emma has been pretty vocal about not pursuing higher education (she barely finished high school), and honestly, i’m not saying you need a phd to have an opinion, but what’s strange is the pressure placed on someone like her (who never signed up to be anyone’s moral compass) to constantly speak up. the expectation itself feels hollow. it’s the kind of performance we’ve all been conditioned to applaud online, where dissonant posts and shallow influencing get dressed up as activism but rarely go beyond the surface.
there’s something oddly comforting about hearing her talk about the ghost in her house, or how a stranger helped her clean her shoes after stepping in poop. because the news is making me depressed. even comedians (***crying in jon stewart***) who once brought me joy now just spike my cortisol. i can’t afford to be emotionally gutted every time i try to stay informed. (which is why, yes, i skip straight to connections when i open the nyt app.)
as a latina living in america, i can say this with my whole chest: entertainment has been saving me. from the world, from myself, from the anxious loops playing in my head. and maybe that’s why i’ve been leaning into gossip, not as escapism, but as a softer, more human way of understanding life. gossip is lived experience. it’s how people pass down truths, warnings, joy. it’s emotional education. and how beautiful to decentralize from yourself for a while, to learn through someone else’s drama or softness or weird little moment. to be inspired. to feel a flicker of hope.
i don’t need emma to speak up for me. i need peace. and the kind of peace i get from her podcast is this subtle, almost accidental kind of therapy. the way she self-gossips (spirals about her own memories, insecurities, weird dreams) has this gentle effect of pulling me back into my own life. through her stories, i remember mine. i remember that i’m layered. that i’m not just surviving but also feeling. and that, honestly, is more radical than it gets credit for.
i’ve been thirsty for normal. for the beautifully boring. for the kinds of stories that make you feel something real without demanding you react, repost, or take tylenol. to the point where even emotional doodles feel more heartwarming than trying to stay “in the know” all the time. gossip, for me, is a manifesto. a way of remembering that even in chaos, there are still stories that connect us.
appetizers
🍔🍟 emotional trans fats & other misunderstood delicacies: champagne is a sophisticated beverage, but few people know it goes perfectly with fried chicken, burgers, and fries. yep, the juicy, greasy stuff people tend to overlook. but in the right context? it’s delicious. it has the rare ability to save your day. the way we treat gossip is kinda the same. it’s labeled bad. trashy. full of carbs, gluten, salt, and emotional trans fats. but the memories built on top of it? chef’s kiss. like when you’re on a road trip and the only place open is a wendy’s drive-thru. and everyone in the car has that look in their eyes, because anything other than dry nuts or bite-sized whatever sounds like heaven. that exact kind of joy. the crunchy, the greasy, the can’t-stop-smiling joy. that’s what gossip can do. and in a world where the delivery of bad news is constant, shouldn’t there be room for joy? for greasy laughter, for moments where the tips of your fingers feel like they’re made of stars? where you feel like you matter? where being alive, even when it’s absurdly hard, still feels beautiful and funny (even when some days you’re like, seriously, what in the actual f*ck is going on?)
🍮 dessert is served
~ ways i’ve been consuming gossip lately
anthropological gossip: going to the field museum and learning about what went down a thousand years ago. if i can’t develop psychic powers to predict the future, i’m looking back. in sapiens, yuval noah harari explains that gossip isn’t just idle talk, it was a survival tool. early humans used it to build trust, form groups, and navigate social hierarchies. we literally evolved to be able to track who was sleeping with who, who could be trusted, and who might betray the tribe. yes! we gossip for food, for safety, for connection. anthropology 101.
memoir playlists: reading crying in h-mart. it’s been on my list forever. michelle zauner, the author, is also the lead singer of japanese breakfast, which isn’t really my type of music, but i’ve been tuning in anyway. kind of like giving her story a soundtrack. the book is memoir gossip, nothing more intimate than someone spilling the hardest, softest, strangest moments of their life and saying, here. feel this with me.
🧾 check please
a tiny letter:
i’ve noticed a lot of people talk about gossip like it’s something they need to quit in order to become a more evolved version of themselves. and honestly, it makes me a little sad, because it feels like we’ve misunderstood the power of an intimate conversation. at this point, you’ve probably figured out that through my eyes, gossiping is just talking, but with a little more soul. while some people work hard to label one as bad and the other as good, here’s how i see it: i’m simply too curious for shallow conversations. gossip is more intimate. we don’t pop champagne with strangers (and we don’t gossip with them either).
it’s not about cruelty, it’s about closeness. it’s not about brain rot, it’s about how much anger (and i really want to get that through), it is about anger and this emotionally tiring game we play every day, on who has it worse. how we are becoming stats on pretty much everything. how everything is leveraged to become content. and in a time like this, i’m becoming aware of it more than ever, about placing value in unique experiences. unique voices.
sometimes we need to get creative. or just tired enough to make small talk, and maybe learn that turtles’ shells have salmonella (true story).
so take it with a grain of salt. take it with a grain of love.
xoxo,
fifi
fun fact:
* fifi (my lifelong family nickname) comes from that. in brazil, we call someone a fifi (or maria fifi) when they like to gossip. i’ve always loved a good gossip.
* the word gossip was used maybe 49 times
* self gossip : in the early 2000s, no one was really talking about eyebrows. like, not in the we are all microblading now way. i was five years old, freshly chaotic, and deeply unsupervised for a few dangerous minutes. i walked into the bathroom, looked at my dad’s razor, and thought—genuinely thought—it was an eyebrow brush for adults. a rite of passage. something you unlock once you’ve paid taxes or owned a purse that wasn’t just for snacks and a ruler. so i did what any five-year-old with a hunger for transformation would do: i shaved off one eyebrow. just one. i still remember my mom’s face when i emerged from the bathroom looking like a confused baby monk. she gasped. i shrugged. we both knew there was no going back. i wore a band-aid on my face for weeks. not because it helped—there was no wound—but because it felt like a narrative choice. like i had to walk into my strict catholic school every morning saying, “yes, i did this. and no, i will not be explaining further.”
Have you heard of the Normal Gossip podcast? Listeners submit gossip, and the host anonymizes a story, and shares it with a guest (usually a comedian).