You Didn't Hear This From Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip

“Gossip could make or break a person, and even if that person was me, I loved it the way any good gossiper does: wholeheartedly, with abandon, and to my own detriment.”

This quote showcases McKinney’s strategic use of personal anecdotes to add concrete, real-world contexts to the abstract definitions of gossip. Her inclusion of key moments from her own life also serves to boost her ethos by indicating that she has personal experience with the facets of gossip that she is intent on defining. Much of the book is constructed around personal anecdotes that are designed to emphasize the personal and informal nature of gossiping in cultural spaces.

“All gossip is kind of productive in that anthropologists have argued that gossip is both important to our interactions in society and an essential part of being human.”

By blending academic sources with a casual tone, McKinney crafts an accessible narrative that simultaneously seeks common ground with readers and indicates that she has widespread scientific support for her notions. Her liberal use of academic references lends weight to her more playful analysis of gossip as a social phenomenon.

“Not all stories are gossip, but the best ones feel like they could be. They invite a kind of collusion between the teller and the hearer, a secret shared that binds them together.”

This quote displays the author’s palpable love of her subject. By using language that romanticizes the concept of gossip and places it within an intimate setting, McKinney highlights people’s tendency of Using Gossip to Shape Identities and Communities, even if those communities extend no farther than “the teller and the hearer,” who are “bound” together by a shared “secret.