Gossip is an art
People watch people. But when they tell other people what they watched, they don’t tell everything. They filter out the interesting bits about someone’s life and tell it an interesting way.
The art of the gossip lies in distilling the story before telling it. If people have to say, “Get to the point” you haven’t distilled your story enough.
Nobody really wants the truth. Because that is boring and mundane. People want the distilliation of interesting experiences. Because mundane and boring is happening in their life as well. There’s nothing new about it.
Gossip gives people a stimulation to run through. When people listen to gossip, they are not just listening about other people. They mentally place themselves in the scenario. They subconsciously answer to themselves, ”What would I do in this scenario?” or giving assurance to themselves and saying, “I would never do that.”
People get their social lessons and cues from listening to gossip. They get to know what’s the boundaries of acceptable behaviour, current social values, what are the consequences of certain actions and unwritten rules of the society they are living in.