I have a really big mouth. I know people where their own secrets are special but everyone's else troubles are fair game.
.... I'd never be able to be Varys or Littlefinger carefully weaving a web.]
Ah! Gossip!
It's who we are, for better or for worse:
http://www.npr.org/2011/05/20/136465083/psst-the-human-brain-is-wired-for-gossip
Your comment doesn't distinguish between online and off, and i think the real 'gossip' developments are the merging of both realms.
I am unusual in that I love to facilitate pointless gossip about 'me' both online and I.R.L. And I absolutely love to mix/mash-up those two realms as a way of entrapping the unskilful and the unwary into simply HORRIBLE! car crashes which rebound on them and usually leave them either in an emergency psychiatric situation or with a knock on the door from the lawyers and/police!
I love to flood everything with a mix of possible, plausible, unlikely and frankly impossible claims, anecdotes, quotes until it become entirely pointless for virtually anyone not in my circle of friends and confidantes to even attempt to 'know' me. This way, I retain my privacy in a world where privacy is disappearing due to the corporate machinations of FB/Tw/G+ and all the rest of them. Salinger in Shinkjuku.
I've 'crossed the line' from humourous to unethical a few times, impersonating people I think have crossed swords with me in the past. But that's now a criminal offence in the U.K, so I've learned my lesson, fortunately without doing time. I really regret some of my stupid behaviour in the past, but I've made amends to those involved and it really helped me to understand the nature of hate,revenge, gossip and what Americans call 'blowback'.
Gossip can destroy people's lives but only if they're vulnerable and/or take it seriously. There's the really tragic cases where troubled teenagers die because they're taunted about their looks or sexuality or race or any other feature that gossips and bullies think they can latch on to. Gossip ranges from this malicious extreme to the truly silly. For instance, various trolls gossip on this site exchange silly PMs about people's 'real-life' locations and identities.
'I know people where their own secrets are special but everyone's else troubles are fair game.' lulz....[yawn]
I get unsolicited emails with this stuff......it's all funny but I fully realise that the most 'ferocious' here are also the most vulnerable and, other than in 'The Pigsty', great care has to be taken in dealing with their outbursts as they're clearly, objectively unwell. It would be effortless to 'hire someone pretending to be me' to turn up at their doors in real-life and challenge the 'keyboard warriors' but what if they had a heart attack and dropped dead? There's an ethics to trolling and an ethics to trol-slaying. It's an art-form really.
It amuses me that anyone who posts on this site imagines that anyone outside of it would ever take anything said here seriously! The 'reputation' of this site is so abyssmal that anything emerging from it has almost zero credibility. That's why the Kristeen Young 'expose' thread is so funny, because
she really did hit the bullseye.
There are '3 Mental Patients' here. They are completely delusional sociopaths, and only other Social Narcissists could ever take them remotely seriously. Although it is kinda funny that they recoil in horror when their personal details are plastered all over the place. Clearly, they are not as chillaxed about the merger of their online and 'real-life' identities as they perhaps imagine. Web 2.0 is coming to and end and Web 3.0 is almost upon us. In South Korea, it's already there and sites like this are perhaps increasingly impossible: which is both good and bad, depending on your point of view.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-PIN
Imagine if everyone here had to register with their driver's licence and a credit card? I think the 'tone' would change pretty damn quickly.
Facefc-uk and the rest are herding the credulous into this world with their 'helpful' requests for mobile phone numbers and banning of mononyms and nick-names. It won't be long now. The InterWeb as we know it is almost over. Morrissey will be so pleased, so relieved to sink back into the arms of 'official cultural gatekeepers' and not have to cope with the psychotic 'fans' trashing him anymore. Or maybe he's 'co-dependent'. 'All you need is me' etc.
I think he made an error of judgement in even mentioning this site as it gave it a plausibility that no-one else gives it, including 95% of those who use it. I doubt he could ever take action to stop the 'gossip' because he would have to establish that 'any reasonable person' would take seriously anything said here. I think that's unlikely!
In China they employ millions to monitor sites for 'unapproved gossip' about anyone who is in a position of authority. But people there apparently find ever more ingenious ways to subvert the system and carry on dissing the rich and powerful.
Online or in real-life: you have to have credibility to effectively gossip, otherwise you just become another delusional person who is instantly dismissed. People used to gossip in the home, work and social spaces like pubs. Now, of course, there's the whole 'social media' gossip-fest. Twitter is, essentially, nothing more than a gossip arena ranging from the hilarious to the deeply disturbing. Facebook is also largely 'gossip' as was My Waste of Space: all that 'friends' nonsense for people who aren't even casual contacts. And, of course, there's this site! Which is like a last hold out of MySpace jpegs/gifs/epithet blizzards. It's is far more of a micro-social-networking gossip site than it is a news/information forum on the Artists Who Were Formerly 'Morrissey'!
I read an hilarious article about how, 'these days', if you're not 'on Facebook' you are considered deeply suspicious by the rest of the world. Once can only assume that the suspicion is that you are not on Facebook, but on 'Morrissey-Solo.com' eek!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/12/catherine-bennett-facebook-psycopaths
Of course, the cutting edge has moved on and it's now a lot harder to be an effective braggart and certainly involves more skill than n*ggr c*N* f#@K as a 'default posture'.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/15/new-art-of-underbragging
Gossip is always a way of establishing hierarchy and rank. Who is The Alpha Male/Female/Inter-Sex Being? I notice that people are so 'absorbed' online these days that they don't seem to have much time for real-life gossip and perhaps that art will be lost gradually. It's, like, MAJOR-ly AMAAAAAZING that you started this thread as I've been ruminating about this since I began my brief, time limited encore here.
One of the '3 Mental Patients' has today left another 'really worrying' threat/abuse territorial pissing on my 'reputation': 'I know something you don't know, friend.' Gosh! What could it possibly be? I could care less, etc.
Veterans of this site will remember the interminable 'Paul' saga and the absolute delusionality of the moderator who staged this supposed 'gossip' fest. As if anyone 'sane' would ever care what emerged from this site about anyone real, impersonated or imagined. Really, Morrissey: don't give this place anymore credence. Don't tempt anyone to think they have leverage over you through this Web 2.0 land-grab. Just sort out and reposition yourself for Web 3.0 and to ensure your posthumous Web legacy is handled better than the legacy of The Smiths. Gossip vs Free Speech. Almost impossible to resolve. A predicament not a problem with a solution, etc.
An excellent idea for a thread! I've really enjoyed pondering this, trapped as I am in my mom's basement with my 22 stone bloated by anti-psychotics sad sack of a loser life, etc. etc.
I have no intention of submitting to gossip from lower-level chimps either online or off. And I will die before I give in to the Facefc-uk tyranny.
I'd love to stay and chat, but I need to get the kids ready for Mass.
Best wishes
'BrummieBoy/Girl/Inter-Sex Being, etc, etc lulz, lols, yawns.
ps: The Leonard Cohen Files is descending into chaos due to the Hop Farm debacle. And that was such a 'nice' civilized site! I bet no-one here could ever guess who 'I/we/us' am/are over there! lol-yawn, etc