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Gossip, an essential human pastime, is full of contradictions. It has the potential to be as destructive to its subjects as it is titillating to its practitioners; it can protect against very real threats, as in the case of certain pre-#MeToo whisper networks, or tip over into the realm of conspiracy. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider the role gossip has played in society over the centuries. They discuss Kelsey McKinney’s new book on the topic, “You Didn’t Hear This from Me,” which Schwartz recently reviewed in The New Yorker, and consider instructive cultural examples—from the Old Testament to “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.” Today, many celebrities have embraced being talked about as a badge of honor, even as new technologies allow questionable assertions about anyone—famous or otherwise—to spread more freely and quickly than ever before. “Just being in public makes you potentially fodder for gossip,” Schwartz says. “I do worry about a world in which privacy is compromised for everybody.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“You Didn’t Hear This from Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip,” by Kelsey McKinney
“Is Gossip Good for Us?,” by Alexandra Schwartz (The New Yorker)
“A Lover’s Discourse,” by Roland Barthes
“Grease” (1978)
“The House of Mirth,” by Edith Wharton
“The Custom of the Country,” by Edith Wharton
“Moses, Man of the Mountain,” by Zora Neale Hurston
“Emma,” by Jane Austen
“Gossip Girl” (2007-12)
“The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” (2010—)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.