Gossip and the other Greta

Yes, I’m referring to Gretchen Barretto and that feud with her sister. My world does not revolve around show business, so the main Greta I’m referring to is Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate change activist.

Main Greta has inspired many around the globe for her impassioned and straightforward message for the world leaders to act on the climate emergency. In an article, The Guardian described main Greta as “a small, isolated figure, with her pigtails and open face, poised bravely behind an enormous lectern, facing down a roomful of powerful, suited adults.” She is someone who “embodies what it’s like to be an individual who yearns for change, against a juggernaut of commercial and political interests defending the status quo.”

Other Greta, on the other hand, has long inspired tabloid gossip with relationships, alleged and admitted, and protracted family feuds that make national headlines and internet memes. In the Barretto family feud, no doubt Greta stirs the cauldron of controversy – blunt, graceful, and still very beautiful at 49, and has links to the country’s elite.

Is this all absurd? Like, the whole country talking about the feuding Barrettos this week while there is a climate emergency, traffic crisis, water crisis and whatnot? “The fate of the nation hangs in the balance,” Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin, Jr. chimed in on the issue on Twitter, obviously joking.

It is not absurd just because it seems absurd in your part of the world or it is not aligned with your taste and views. We all can use a break from the serious issues of the day and explore the world of celebrity gossip from time to time. Main Greta is important, so is the other Greta too.

You want some proof of the latter? Evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar may provide some answers. He was quoted in an article in The Atlantic saying that “gossip is what makes human society as we know it possible.”

Julie Beck of The Altantic goes on to write: “Gossip is now being considered by scientists as a way to learn about cultural norms, bond with others, promote cooperation, and even, as one recent study found, allow individuals to gauge their own success and social standing.”

“A piece of gossip, they (scientists) argue, is an opportunity to find out how someone did something right, or something wrong, and learn from the example. Learning how to live with others is something that continues throughout life—once you’ve learned not to eat paste, you can graduate to more nuanced lessons of human behavior.”

“Because negative stories tend to stick better in the mind than positive stories, it makes sense that gossip about people who violated norms would be more instructive than gossip about people who are really great at norms.”

When asked by an online magazine, a construction worker in the US made this perfect remark about celebrity gossips: “To engage with celebrity culture is to explore, reflect, add to and co-construct what already exists around us. Celebrity is representative of something that, no matter how vapid, is undeniably potent.”

Baumeister, Zhang, and Vohs (2004) in their research article “Gossip as cultural learning” published in the scientific journal Review of General Psychology, put it this way: “Gossip constitutes a form of social information that uses narratives to communicate rules. In this, it is not unique.

“Aesop’s fables, Jesus’s parables, Buddha’s stories, and many other famous stories accomplish the same end. Communicating principles by telling stories is apparently more effective than describing the principles in the abstract, at least for reaching many audiences.”

We love to gossip about other people committing mistakes because either we can relate to those mistakes or we want to avoid those same mistakes. We also derive some comfort in knowing that we are all humans and no one is exempt from errors and weaknesses.

But McAndrew and Milenkovic (2002), writing about the evolutionary psychology of gossip in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, offered a more cautious view about gossip: “People actively seek information about others that will be most useful in social competition. We seek exploitable, damaging information about high-status people and non-allies; we actively disperse status-enhancing information about our allies; and we keep a very watchful eye on our friends.”

Oooh, gossip.

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