37: 八卦让我如此羞耻地快乐
最近没有好播客节目听了,就返回去随机听了下 Back Issue——我最爱的流行文化播客节目,第三季的这集 In Our Gossip, Girl Era 还是这么有趣,让我放松,感到快乐满意。这期的客座主持是 Rachaelle Hampton(又一档我爱的流行文化播客节目,Slate 的 ICYMI 的主持),和 Josh 主要聊了聊八卦的乐趣。
八卦令人快乐且上瘾,同时展现出八卦的一面又让人羞耻,毕竟这似乎是碎嘴,多管闲事的同义词。为了维持一个正面的有教养的,且酷的形象,我们可能都不会承认自己隐藏的八卦之心吧!!但是当一个八卦到了嘴边,不说能忍的了吗?!于是我又给自己辩护了,八卦是一种交流感情的方式,八卦是讨论时事,八卦是社会现状的反映……这是真的没错,在 The Elements of Journalism 中就有提到,“When anthropologists began to compare notes on the nature of communication in the world’s few remaining primitive cultures, they discovered something unexpected. From the most isolated tribal societies in Africa to the most distant islands in the Pacific, people shared an essentially similar definition of news. They shared gossip. They talked about their leaders. They even looked for the same qualities in the messengers they picked to gather and deliver their news: people who could run swiftly, gather accurate information, and retell it in an engaging way.” 八卦可是人类参与公共生活的行为,八卦、传播信息是最早的新闻报道。
节目中请到的另一位嘉宾 Andrea McDonnell 还补充了,"It's a problem that gossip and popular culture is trivialized because it's so often feminized. When the conversation, regardless of who's involved in terms of gender, is feminized, it's dismissed. But especially today I feel like popular culture is a mirror through which we are constantly thinking about politics and to ignore it is to really neglect where people are in the conversation.” 感动!
有了学术理论背书,我参与八卦的行为就少了一些羞耻,我爱八卦!八卦让大脑释放 oxytocin,多么快乐的荷尔蒙!但是我依然要强调一下:八卦的意图是很重要的!我喜欢八卦因为我喜欢掌握信息并且与人沟通时有那种 you know( wink wink 👀 ) 的感觉,前提当然是对方与我分享着某种共同,且我更乐意参与的八卦是公共事件相关(纽约时报 Opinion 前任主编 James Bennet 批评媒体 illiberal bias 和“雷婉莹你是我奶奶” 具有同等的刺激性 )。但如果你只是喜欢指手画脚,评判别人标榜自己,喜欢插手别人的私事,那这样的行为确实够讨厌的。
八卦有没有质量高低之分呢?我觉得有,就比如最近我所见到的互联网上最热的话题,那真是 oxytocin 疯狂释放,如果你关注 Black twitter,你的快乐大概会翻十倍。
说了半天我的目的其实是为了分享这一段精彩绝伦的 roasting,当之无愧的 queen of roast Geisha 305. 它给了我一整天的快乐与活力,Imma use this for my prayer.