Is gossip a force for good? A conversation with Warwick Tea

“I HATE GOSSIP” is written in black sharpie across her front. 

Balancing three pints – two in-hand, one between her teeth – she manoeuvres through a lively crowd of students, heading toward a group clad in matching, graffitied t-shirts. Joining them, she notices her chosen message is far from original. It’s a white lies-themed circle and four others arrive sporting variations of the same phrase.

In truth, everyone loves gossip. 

Nothing matches the thrill of unleashing a bombshell of new information among friends. A mutual you vaguely know has done something outrageous? The perfect conversation-starter. Gossip fulfils the human need to feel connected to a larger community, assuring us that we’re part of a greater whole.

In her book Gossip and Organisations, psychologist Kathryn Waddington describes gossip as a form of social network building whose purpose is to “…entertain, supply social information, and establish, change or maintain group membership.” Besides providing entertainment and belonging, Waddington also describes the role of gossip as to maintain group power structures or norms. 

In the same way that gossip creates valuable, trusted networks, it also wields the power to dismantle them

Gossip presents the opportunity to make a moral judgement and sets standards of behaviour between the gossipers. In condemning the same act or person, gossip establishes common values and builds trust. The act functions as an unwritten social contract and bonds people together.

Despite its benefits, gossip remains widely condemned. The idea that gossip is ‘bad’ largely stems from sexist attitudes discriminating against the ways in which women communicate. In Western culture, women and gossip have been closely linked throughout history. ‘Gossip’ was originally coined in the sixteenth century to refer to someone who assisted the midwife. ‘A Gossip’ was responsible for spreading the news when a child was born. The stigmatisation of gossip speaks to a cultural distrust of female agency, particularly when women are out of sight of men.

Digital Scholar Inger Mewburn describes how women, among other groups, have commonly employed gossip to curb the powerful without direct confrontation. In the same way that gossip creates valuable, trusted networks, it also wields the power to dismantle them. “Information is power and gossip is one way of hoarding and leveraging non-positional power over those in positions of authority.” Undermining traditional hierarchies, gossip makes people less willing to blindly cooperate.

Schools and universities create the perfect environment for gossip to thrive. In competitive academic environments, power struggles are dynamic and intense. A campus university like Warwick offers abundant opportunities for gossip, providing the perfect ‘Goldilocks effect’ — it’s small enough for people to be connected to gossip in some way, large enough to ensure there’s always something worth gossiping about.

While online gossip is abundant and easy to participate in, it is often wrought with misinformation and hate

Online submission pages have transported university gossip into the digital age. Nearly every university in the UK has an online gossip page – accounts that publicise anonymous submissions from students to a wider network of followers. Warwick Tea is the latest account to join the scene, carrying the torch passed from last year’s Warwick Grapevine. Posting to an audience of over 2.5k followers, submissions range from the political to the scandalous to the mundane, all bearing the slogan “gossipum est bonum.” In an interview with The Boar, Warwick Tea stays true to their brand and responds anonymously. Speaking on gossip’s role in university life, Tea maintains that gossip serves a greater purpose, “not just at Uni but in life in general” and preaches the “fun and distinctly human” act of “chatting about tea with your mates.”

Students scroll through Warwick Tea driven by the urge to see if any posts feature themselves or simply to snoop on the lives of others. The page primarily functions to publicise inside jokes among friends. Despite not knowing the identities of those featured, our human curiosity persists.

The sources of online gossip are never verified, and there’s no process to screen those permitted to submit gossip. Consequently, while online gossip is abundant and easy to participate in, it is often wrought with misinformation and hate. Warwick Tea doesn’t deny the negative impact, “technology makes it easier to spread gossip anonymously which often leads to increased toxicity,” though insists that technology has allowed the account to “have fun with gossip, creating a brand and fun captions everyday is always good fun.”

Anonymity is key to the pages’ appeal— gossip accounts receive outrageous submissions and maintain popularity for the guarantee that the author’s identity will be concealed. Like many other gossip platforms, Warwick Tea takes a fairly informal approach to moderating submissions: “originally, we didn’t moderate the submissions beyond initialising certain submissions and choosing not to post a couple pieces of blatant, racist hate speech.” Though recently, the account decided to remove additional “specifying details” such as “people’s degrees, in cases of particularly serious and negative allegations.” 

Under the veil of anonymity, individuals feel emboldened to spread hate

The line between hate speech and gossip is one that can be difficult to draw, the moderators behind Tea finding it “difficult sometimes to determine the difference and to work out what to post,” discussing how to moderate against “extremely serious allegations”. 

During last May when an on-campus screening of the Eurovision song contest was cancelled due to pro-Palestine protests, many took to Warwick Grapevine to vent their frustrations. Both protestors and Eurovision fans were aggravated, posting strongly-worded comments on the page. Grapevine took a stand, uploading a statement which expressed their “dismay at the decision to cancel,” criticising the “division and hatred” the protestors brought to campus. Citing Grapevine’s disclosed bias, comments challenged the account’s true intentions. A post following the statement gathered comments from both sides condemning the other, underscoring the role of gossip pages in fostering polarisation. Under the veil of anonymity, individuals feel emboldened to spread hate.

Naturally, if empathy was at the heart of gossip sites, they simply wouldn’t be nearly as exciting, or exist at all.

To avoid ‘toxic gossip’, Tea advises students to contribute “funny, less serious” submissions. “Hearing ridiculous stories and accusations, combined with some particularly creative and unique wording is always a joy for us to read and post”. 

Gossip can function as a natural and healthy part of life but, like anything, it has its limits. With the rise of technology, these limits are increasingly tested.

But why are we taking this all so seriously? After all, isn’t it just a bit of fun?