Gossip

Here's the conclusion from a study published in the journal Aggressive Behavior: Watching TV programs about mean people can make you a mean person. The study focused on 250 college women who viewed clips depicting different forms of aggression, from violent fighting to gossiping and excluding others.

But here's the scary part to the study:

Aggressive reactions are more automatic and less conscious than most people assume. ... That means nobody deliberately decides to imitate a Real Housewife; the connection is more subtle and unintentional. … One of the authors points out that even TV shows depicting friends putting each other down in the name of a joke has its effects, too.

Watching a clip of two girls fighting over a boyfriend causes the same kind of reaction that watching a murderous scene would. This leads to a higher chance of engaging in aggressive behavior because the stimuli “primes” your brain for aggression.

So, anyone know of a show where everyone treats each other respectfully, don’t make jokes at someone’s expense, and no one secretly sabotages anyone?

As the village speeches dragged on, eyes drifted to screens. Teenagers scrolled Instagram. One man texted his girlfriend. And men crowded around a phone streaming a soccer match. Just about anywhere, a scene like this would be mundane. But this was happening in a remote Indigenous village in one of the most isolated places of the planet.

The Marubo people have long lived in communal huts scattered hundreds of miles along the Ituí River deep in the Amazon rainforest. They speak their own language, hunt, fish, and trap spider monkeys to make soup or keep as pets.

They have preserved this way of life for hundreds of years through isolation—some villages can take a week to reach. But since September (of 2023), the Marubo have had high-speed internet thanks to Elon Musk.

The 2,000-member tribe is one of hundreds across Brazil that are suddenly logging on with Starlink, the satellite-internet service from Space X. Since its entry into Brazil in 2022, Starlink has swept across the world’s largest rainforest, bringing the web to one of the last offline places on Earth. The results have been less than utopian:

“When it arrived, everyone was happy,” said 73-year-old Tsainama Marubo sitting on the dirt floor of her village’s maloca, a 50-foot-tall hut where they sleep, cook, and eat together. The internet brought clear benefits, like video chats with faraway loved ones and calls for help in emergencies. “But now, things have gotten worse,” she said. […] “Young people have gotten lazy because of the internet.”

After only nine months with Starlink, the Marubo are already grappling with the same challenges that have racked American households for years: teenagers glued to phones; group chats full of gossip; addictive social networks; online strangers; violent video games; scams; misinformation; and minors watching pornography.

Leaders realized they needed limits. The internet would be switched on for only two hours in the morning, five hours in the evening, and all day Sunday.

Decades ago, the most respected Marubo shaman had visions of a hand-held device that could connect with the entire world. “It would be for the good of the people,” he said. “But in the end, it wouldn’t be.” “In the end,” he added, “there would be war.”

His son sat on the log across from him, listening. “I think the internet will bring us much more benefit than harm,” he said, “at least for now.” Regardless, he added, going back was no longer an option. “The leaders have been clear,” he said. “We can’t live without the internet.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Two things here stand out: The first, that exposing a remote tribe to this modern tool created many of the same problems experienced within modernity: Use of the internet changes the user. Secondly, the categorization of the internet as simultaneously harmful and essential is perhaps unsurprising, but it’s fascinating that putting limitations on use of the internet seems to be the best way to deal with this ambiguity.

One of the zany experiments staged by the "Mythbusters" television show nearly turned into a suburban tragedy in Dublin, California when the crew fired a homemade cannon toward huge containers of water at the Alameda County Sheriff's Department bomb disposal range.

The cantaloupe-sized cannonball missed the water, tore through a cinder-block wall, skipped off a hillside and flew some 700 yards east, right into the Tassajara Creek neighborhood, where children were returning home from school at 4:15 p.m. There, the 6-inch projectile bounced in front of a home on quiet Cassata Place, ripped through the front door, raced up the stairs and blasted through a bedroom, where a man, woman and child slept through it all, only awakening because of plaster dust.

The ball wasn't done bouncing. It exited the house, leaving a perfectly round hole in the stucco, crossed six-lane Tassajara Road, took out several tiles from the roof of a home on Bellevue Circle and finally slammed into the Gill family's beige Toyota Sienna minivan in a driveway on Springvale Drive.

That's where Jasbir Gill, who had pulled up 10 minutes earlier with his 13-year-old son, found the ball on the floorboards, with glass everywhere and an obliterated dashboard. "It's shocking - anything could have happened," Gill said after the van had been taken away as evidence, along with the cannonball.

"Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy," said Sgt. J.D. Nelson, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff's Department. "You wouldn't think it was possible." He said the television crew was incredibly unlucky that the cannonball flew through Dublin, but "tremendously lucky that it didn't seriously injure or kill somebody."

Possible Preaching Angle:

Youl can use this to set up a sermon on the power of sin or hurtful words to inflict much more damage than we ever imagined. Just as the local police sergeant said, "Crazy, crazy, crazy. You wouldn't think it was possible." That's what we all say when we see the impact of our hurtful words or sins against others.

A Maryland high school athletic director faces criminal charges for allegedly using artificial intelligence to mimic the voice of Pikesville High School Principal Eric Eiswert, misleading people into believing Eiswert made racist and antisemitic comments. Baltimore County Police Chief Robert McCullough said, "We now have conclusive evidence that the recording was not authentic. It's been determined the recording was generated through the use of artificial intelligence technology.”

After an investigation by the Baltimore County Police Department, Dazhon Darien was arrested on charges of stalking, theft, disruption of school operations, and retaliation against a witness.

While celebrities have been on guard against the use of AI for unauthorized use of likeness, this particular target is notable for his ordinariness. Hany Farid is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who specializes in digital forensics and helped analyze the recording. “What's so particularly poignant here is that this is a Baltimore school principal. This is not Taylor Swift. It's not Elon Musk. It's just some guy trying to get through his day.”

According to police, Darien's alleged scheme began as retaliation against Eiswert over “work performance challenges.” Investigators reported that Eiswert began investigating for the potential mishandling of nearly $2,000 in school funds, and had reprimanded Darien for firing a coach without approval. Darien’s contract was up for renewal next semester, but Eiswert implied that the renewal might not happen.

In January 2024, detectives discovered the AI-generated voice recording, which had spread on social media. The recording caused significant disruptions, leading to Eiswert's temporary removal from the school and triggering hate-filled messages and numerous calls to the school.

Darien was eventually arrested at Baltimore/Washington International Airport while attempting to board a flight to Houston. He was stopped for packing a gun in his bags, and officers discovered a warrant for his arrest.

Still, the result continued to leave Professor Farid unsettled. “What is going to be the consequence of this?” Farid emphasized the need for regulatory action. “I don't understand at what point we're going to wake up as a country and say, like, ‘Why are we allowing this? Where are our regulators?’”

Possible Preaching Angle:

This is a good example that deception is on the rise (“evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” 2 Tim. 3:13). We should be discerning about the information we choose to believe and pass on to others (whether secular or religious).

Because the British royal family lives under constant media scrutiny, it’s usual for any member of the family to stay out of the limelight for an extended period. So, when Catherine of Wales hadn’t been seen in public for months, and her Mother’s Day photo was scrutinized as possibly being doctored, conspiracy theories began to proliferate.

All these theories proved to be irresistible for online jokesters. “Perhaps Kate Middleton had been using a body double, or was in a coma, or was engaged in an illicit tryst,” people speculated online. Even American late night comedy hosts were getting in on the action.

But it turns out the truth was much less exciting, and much scarier: Kate Middleton was undergoing chemotherapy treatments for a form of cancer.

For many people, this news created a regretful reckoning. A 58-year-old woman named Dana spoke to reporters at The Washington Post about this. Dana had been joking with her friends about the Kate Middleton rumors; when she heard the truth, she was filled regret. She said, “This woman’s sick and afraid. And I just lost my mom to cancer. I am devastated at my inhumanity.”

Many of the online entertainment personalities simply ceased joking and moved on to other targets, but CBS’ late-night host took an extra step, apologizing during a segment of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He said:

There’s a standard that I try to hold myself to. And that is I do not make light of somebody else’s tragedy. Any cancer diagnosis is harrowing for the patient and for their family. Though I’m sure they don’t need it from me, I and everyone here at The Late Show would like to extend our well wishes and heartfelt hope that her recovery is swift and thorough.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Telling jokes can be a great way to bring levity to your friends, but take care that your jokes do not veer into harassment or defamation of character.

For five years in a row, Finland has ranked No. 1 as the happiest country in the world, according to the World Happiness Report. A Finnish philosopher and psychology researcher who studies the fundamentals of happiness, was asked: What exactly makes people in Finland so exceptionally satisfied with their lives? He answered, “To maintain a high quality of life, here are three things we never do”:

1. We Don’t Compare Ourselves to Our Neighbors.

There’s a famous line by a Finnish poet: “Don’t compare or brag about your happiness.” Finns really take this to heart, especially when it comes to material things and overt displays of wealth. I once ran into one of the wealthiest man in Finland. He was pushing his toddler in a stroller towards the tram station. He could have bought himself an expensive car or hire a driver, but he opted for public transportation. That’s what success looks like in Finland: Just like everyone else.

2. We Don’t Overlook the Benefits of Nature.

According to a 2021 survey, 87% of Finns feel that nature is important to them because it provides them with peace of mind, energy, and relaxation. In Finland, employees are entitled to four weeks of summer holiday. Many of them use that time to hit the countryside and immerse themselves in nature. Spending time in nature increases vitality, well-being, and a gives a sense of personal growth.

3. We Don’t Break the Community Circle of Trust.

Research shows that the higher the levels of trust within a country, the happier its citizens are. Finnish people tend to trust each other and value honesty. If you forget your laptop in a library or lost your phone on the train, you can be quite confident you’ll get it back. Kids also often take a public bus home from school and play outside without supervision.

Possible Preaching Angles:

This illustration could also be titled, “3 Things People in the Happiest Churches Do.” It is instructive that each of the three points matches with scriptural values for relationships between church members: 1. We don’t compare ourselves to our neighbors: (Matt. 7:1-5; 2 Cor. 10:12, Gal. 5:26; Gal. 6:4); 2. We don’t overlook the benefits of nature: (Psa. 1:2; Mark 6:31; Phil. 4:8; Heb. 4:9-10); 3. We don’t break the community circle of trust: (Acts 2:42, 1 Tim. 5:13; Heb. 10:24-25; Jam. 1:26; 1 Pet. 2:1, 2 Cor 12:20)

In his book Of Boys and Men, researcher Richard Reeves notes that until around 2015, the phrase “toxic masculinity” was just mentioned a few times in academic articles. But by 2017, there were thousands of mentions, mostly in the mainstream media.

The term is almost never defined, and is instead used to simply signal disapproval. Lacking a consistent definition, the phrase now refers to any male behavior that the user disapproves of, from the tragic to the trivial. It has been blamed, among other things, for mass shootings, gang violence, online trolling, climate change, the financial crisis, and an unwillingness to wear a mask during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lumping together terrorists and delinquents, the phrase ultimately poisons the very idea of masculinity itself. The book contains interviews from dozens of adolescent boys about what they like about being a boy. Most boys couldn’t even answer the question. One college sophomore told the author, “That’s interesting. I never thought about that. You hear a lot more about what is wrong with guys.”

In Fall 2022, the Gas app exploded in popularity among high schoolers, but a vicious, unfounded rumor caused its popularity to nosedive, confounding its founders in the process.

Titled after the internet slang “gas up” which means to flatter someone or give them good feelings, the app allows students to share anonymous compliments with their peers. But mere weeks after it reached No. 1 on the Apple store, rumors began circulating that Gas was being used for sex trafficking.

One user said, “I have a Glock and I’ll come into your house and kill all of you,” said Nikita Bier, the startup entrepreneur who founded Gas. “The messages are very detailed, and they’ll send like 150 of these messages because they’re so angry. We have had emails saying, ‘what you’re doing is disgusting and I’ve reported you to the FBI.’ We get countless messages every day from users about it.”

According to Bier, the rumors intensified after parents, teachers, news reporters, and public safety organizations amplified them without knowing if they were true or not.

One such agency was the police department in Piedmont, Oklahoma, which later had to post a retraction. Piedmont Police Chief Scott Singer later said, “That posting was the result of a post that was forwarded to us, which we later learned to be a bogus posting. As a result, we talked with the CEO of Gas, and we have determined it was a bogus posting. We have removed that from our Facebook page and informed the schools that any postings about that were discovered to be false.”

Bier says, “The app grows on its own, but dealing with the hoax requires a lot of labor.” He’s tried a variety of strategies to counter the misinformation, but it seems none of them are very effective. “The challenge is that you can only fight memes with memes. If it’s not easily screenshotable and exciting it’s not going to get more visibility than the original message.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Nothing can ruin a good situation like poor judgment and unbridled gossiping. As Christians we ought to set an example both by what we say and what we choose NOT to say.

On the unusually cold morning of January 28, 1986, the Challenger space shuttle blew apart 73 seconds after liftoff, killing all seven astronauts on board. But according to some conspiracy theorists, six of the seven crew members still live among us.

Some of the examples are:

Captain Richard “Dick” Scobee, is now the CEO of a Chicago marketing-advertising company called Cows in Trees.

Pilot Michael J. Smith is professor Michael J. Smith of the University of Wisconsin.

Mission Specialist Judith Resnik is a professor of Law at Yale Law School.

Payload Specialist (and “Teacher in Space”) Christa McAuliffe now only uses her first name, Sharon. She has an almost entirely different face than that of Christa’s, and is an adjunct professor at Syracuse University College of Law.

Payload Specialist Gregory Jarvis is the only person that the conspiracy theorists believe died, because they couldn’t identify a double for him.

The facts have repeatedly shown that Challenger tragically fell from the sky due to an O-ring failure after the ship was launched in unsafe temperatures.

In a recent article in Popular Mechanics, Professor Marta Marchlewska at the Polish Institute of Psychology explained the cause for such conspiracies. “People who say that astronauts are still alive refuse to accept that bad things accidentally happen to good people. So, there's someone behind the disaster or it simply did not happen.”

The author of the article then summarizes: “A conspiracy theory tames the great chaos around us, which is the likely explanation for these implausible ideas. It’s easier to blame the imagined secret machinations of influential people, serving dark agendas, than admitting life can be a cruel beast."

Possible Preaching Angle:

People are tempted to believe a lie when the truth challenges our false beliefs. People want to believe that good things happen to good people and bad things to bad people. People want to believe they we are able to be good. But none of that is true. But, as followers of Christ, we have something far more trustworthy to tame the great chaos around us.

They say that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. But for one doctor, the cost of lacking such prevention is much more costly. In fact, it’s costing people their lives. Dr. Brytney Cobia is at Grandview Medical Center in Birmingham, and she’s been treating coronavirus patients, some who are vaccinated, and some who aren’t. The difference between those who make it and those who don’t is as obvious as it is heartbreaking. She said,

I’m admitting young healthy people to the hospital with very serious COVID infections. One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late.

As of July (2021), the state of Alabama had the lowest vaccination rate of the nation, with only about 33% of its residents fully vaccinated. Because of the rise of the virus’ Delta variant, Alabama hospitals are experiencing a dramatic surge in COVID-related hospital visits. And according to Dr. Cobia, deathly sickness in someone’s inner circle is the only thing that will get some folks to consider taking the vaccine.

A few days later when I call time of death, I hug their family members and I tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to go get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same.

They cry. And they tell me they didn't know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought because they had a certain blood type or a certain skin color they wouldn't get as sick. But they were wrong. And they wish they could go back. But they can't. So, they thank me, and they go get the vaccine. And I go back to my office, write the death note, and say a small prayer that this loss will save more lives.

Possible Preaching Angle:

1) Lives are damaged and even lost when people choose a convenient untruth instead of an inconvenient truth. Some refuse to take heed until the danger is imminent, but by then it's often too late to do anything meaningful. The time to act with prudence is before the danger overwhelms. 2) In the spiritual realm people also procrastinate making a decision for salvation and it threatens their eternal destiny.

The rumors spread like wildfire: Muslims were secretly lacing a Sri Lankan village’s food with sterilization drugs. Soon, a video circulated that appeared to show a Muslim shopkeeper admitting to drugging his customers—he had misunderstood the question that was angrily put to him. Then over a several-day span, dozens of mosques and Muslim-owned shops and homes were burned down across multiple towns.

The rumors were spread via Facebook, whose newsfeed algorithm prioritized high-engagement content, especially videos. “Designed to maximize user time on site,” said a New York Times article. The algorithm “promotes whatever wins the most attention. Studies have found that posts that tap into negative, primal emotions like anger or fear produce the highest engagement.”

Similar cases of mob violence have taken place in India, Myanmar, Mexico, and elsewhere, with misinformation spread mainly through Facebook and the messaging tool WhatsApp.

This happened despite Facebook’s decision in January 2018 to tweak its algorithm, to prevent this kind of deception that leads to violence. But these changes may actually have made the problem worse. An article in the Columbia Journalism Review explained why: “misinformation is almost always more interesting than the truth.”

Two Clemson University researchers have extensively studied the phenomenon of foreign political disinformation campaigns via social media. To combat this growing problem, they decided to launch their own campaign.

Called Spot the Troll, it invites users to take a short quiz and see if they can identify which social media accounts are authentic and which ones were fabricated. The goal is to teach people the “markers of inauthenticity” in online social media profiles. The title reflects this aim; the term “troll” is internet jargon for any person who intentionally creates a stir by posting erroneous, hateful, or provocative content.

This practice has become weaponized by foreign intelligence agencies. Pioneered by Russia, these “troll farms” have proliferated in places like Iran and China, among those who specialize in sowing political discord. Linvill says, “They push ideologies in two extreme directions, making it harder and harder for us to make compromises.” He is concerned in part because the problem has become home-grown. “It's not just state actors. It's also Americans doing it to ourselves.”

Possible Preaching Angles:

In an age of rampant disinformation, we must be especially vigilant regarding the things we share on social media. Our knee-jerk tendencies of sharing anything that validates our biases will get us into trouble if and when our statements are revealed to be based on falsehoods.

Over the years belief in conspiracy theories have proliferated in America and in many parts of the world. Some of them include:

-The US government deposits $630,000 into an inaccessible, secret bank account for every person born in the USA. Only those who know the correct top-secret codes can access THEIR money.

-Victims of some mass shootings, especially Sandy Hook, were crisis actors paid by the government as part of a secret plot to take away citizen’s guns.

-Jews secretly control governments all over the world and own all the major banks.

In ministering to people, Christians need to look at these weird and irrational beliefs not with condescension, but at what is really behind them. In reviewing conspiracy theories, author J.C. Pan writes that these anxiety-based beliefs flourish when citizens feel politically or economically marginalized:

People end up susceptible to outlandish ideas not because they’re inordinately foolish or ill-intentioned, but because they’re living in times of enormous socioeconomic instability and political discord. Put another way, conspiracy theories… (are a) signal that a democracy is already decaying. Combating them effectively has less to do with sounding the alarm than with taking up a broader fight for economic equality and for robust, democratic social institutions.

In the Entre Leadership podcast, author Stephen Mansfield compares how barnacles slow down sea vessels to the affect gossip can have an organization or church. Some of the facts discussed in the podcast:

-Barnacles can slow down ships by as much as 40% as reported by the US Navy.

-Barnacles can get inside engines and can be added weight on the hull.

-Barnacles can actually crack the hull of smaller vessels.

-Barnacles diminish the aerodynamics of the boat.

-The number of barnacles multiply rapidly due to the constant reproduction.

-The US Navy spends $500 million a year to scrape barnacles off ships.

Possible Preaching Angles: Faultfinding; Gossip – Gossip slows down the mission and vision of the church and it affects the health of the body. There is a cost to dealing with gossip, but it’s worth it. This illustration provides a positive way to preach on a negative subject.

Leighanne Bromley was listening to a message from staff at her son’s school, and she later said when she heard the whole thing, her jaw hit the floor.

Bromley’s ten-year-old son with autism had been out of school with a cold, and the message was ostensibly a basic check-in about his return. After the point where the woman thought she had disconnected the call, however, the voicemail recorded an exchange between her and another male staffer, joking about whether or not he could be held out toward the end of the year.

Bromley understands that her son had some behavioral struggles, but was still taken aback by their cavalier disposition. “I was gobsmacked and horrified someone who is entrusted with my son's care had that attitude towards him.” The episode especially rankled Bromley because she’d only received reports of minor problems in her son’s three years of previous attendance, and even his most recent struggles were concerning enough that she’d reached out to school officials on how to best strategize solutions.

The incident also prompted questions of whether or not such disrespectful staff behavior was widespread, since more than half of the students at the school are also on the autism spectrum. In response, school headmaster Rob Jones personally apologized for their behavior, and offered a statement on the school website:

“This type of behavior is not acceptable and goes against the values of our school. We are taking this matter seriously and a full internal investigation is taking place.”

Potential Preaching Angles: Our unguarded moments tend to reveal the character inside. Thoughtless joking can cause incredible pain and suffering, and erode the sense of community we say that we want.

In his book I Declare War, Levi Lusko writes that it takes cooperation of 72 different muscles to produce speech. On average 16,000 words come out of your mouth every day. That adds up to a whopping 860.3 million words in the average American lifetime. What do all the nouns, verbs, adjectives, and sentences say about your life and the condition of your heart?

Our harmful words may have negative consequences that we ever imagined. James Stephens learned that lesson the hard way. Stephens was fired from his job as chief financial officer for the Georgia Subsequent Injury Trust Fund after his boss heard some less-than-flattering commentary, courtesy of an accidental pocket-dial.

Mike Coan, director of the fund and Stephens' supervisor, had a habit of calling after hours. After one such call, Stephens had a heated conversation with his wife about Coan, who was listening after Stephens accidentally called him back.

Consequently, Stephens is filing suit against his boss for eavesdropping and invasion of privacy. David Guldenschuh, the attorney representing both Stephens and his wife, claims that once Coan knew the conversation was intended to be private, he had a legal obligation to terminate the call, referring to the call as "voyeuristic eavesdropping" and "felonious conduct."

Rikki Klieman, legal analyst for CBS News, understands the rationale for the lawsuit, but sees a potential hurdle in its ability to proceed. "What we find here is someone who really believed he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in having a very, very confidential conversation with his wife and that yet, it may not be private at all."

Potential Preaching Angles: The tongue is hard to tame, be careful in our communication, what's done in private can be revealed in public.

A study conducted by Lifeway Research shows that many women with unplanned pregnancies go silently from the church pew to the abortion clinic, convinced the church would gossip rather than help. Researchers found that more than 4 in 10 women who have had an abortion were churchgoers when they ended a pregnancy. But only 7 percent of women discussed their abortion decision with anyone at church. Three-fourths (76 percent) say the church had no influence on their decision to terminate a pregnancy. Also, among women who have had an abortion:

• Two-thirds (65 percent) say church members judge single women who are pregnant.
• A majority (54 percent) thinks churches oversimplify decisions about pregnancy options.
• Fewer than half (41 percent) believe churches are prepared to help with decisions about unwanted pregnancies.
• Only 38 percent of women who have had an abortion consider church a safe place to discuss pregnancy options including parenting, abortion, and adoption. More than half of churchgoers who have had an abortion (52 percent) say no one at church knows it. Nearly half of women who have had an abortion (49 percent) say pastors' teachings on forgiveness don't seem to apply to terminated pregnancies.

Pastor Scott Sauls from Nashville spent five years working with Pastor Tim Keller at New York City's Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Sauls writes that there are many ways that he saw Keller model the gospel, but there is one thing that really stood out for him. Sauls writes:

Tim [Keller] is the best example I have ever seen of someone who consistently covers with the gospel.

Never once did I see Tim tearing another person down to their face, on the Internet, or through gossip. Instead, he seemed to assume the good in people. He talked about how being forgiven and affirmed by Jesus frees us for this—for "catching people doing good" instead of looking for things to criticize or be offended by. Even when someone had done wrong or been in error, Tim would respond with humble restraint and self-reflection instead of venting negativity and criticism. As the grace of God does, he covered people's flaws and sins. Sometimes he covered my flaws and sins. He did this because that's what grace does; it reminds us that in Jesus we are shielded and protected from the worst things about ourselves. Because Jesus shields us like this, we should of all people be zealous to restore reputations versus destroying reputations, to protect a good name versus calling someone a name, to shut down gossip versus feeding gossip, to restore broken relationships versus begrudging broken people.