Is gossip really so bad? In 2022, anonymous stories became the news (2024)

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So goes the Instagram bio of @Deuxmoi, an account that trades in sightings and supposed secrets of famous people around the world. Whether or not the information is true is incidental for some of the 1.7m people who follow the account, instead, the proposition that privileged intel can be served up by anyone standing near Ed Sheeran in Wholefoods keeps people scrolling.

Deuxmoi, which follows the format of ‘blind-item’ newsletters like theUK weekly Popbitch, can claim correctly calling Zoë Kravitz’s split from her husband hours before an official comment, as well as sightings of Pete Davidson's on numerous clandestine dates over the years. The account has brought about the democratisation of gossip via smartphones, but also been criticised for publishing speculative rumours and the kind of celebrity stalking usually seen on the tabloid side-bar of shame.

But in 2022, our morbid fascination with gossip has become the stuff of highbrow conversations, too, with a wave of podcasts and Reddit channels dissecting what it is about gossip that fuels us. Shannon McNamara, the host of Fluently Forward, has been riding the wave of interest in blind items – anonymously submitted tip-offs – and often answers users’ questions by digging through her archives to uncover the previous tip-offs about a celebrity. “I created the podcast after I found some success on TikTok talking about blind items, and people began asking for one,” she tells GQ.

McNamara thinks blind items are especially appealing because they straddle two compulsive concepts: celebrity gossip andconspiracy theories. “It's probably one of the quickest rabbit holes to slide into because blind items have this very tantalising history where a lot of them have come true,” she says. “I think that's why the Ellen DeGeneres scandal was so crazy to people. She didn't cheat on anyone, she didn't do a hit and run, but her being mean [to staff], was enough to cancel her and cause this uproar, which I don't know if that would have happened 20 years ago.”

This cultural appetite for gossip is not new. “Finding gossip irresistible is part of human nature,” says Frank McAndrew, a psychology professor in Illinois. A pioneer of research into gossip, he explains “our ancestors evolved in a world where it was essential to keep up with the private lives of other people in order to be successful”. Those who didn’t gossip got left behind.

In a time where the internet feels drenched in paranoia and out for bad behaviour receipts, this year has been shaped by private gossip invading real life. From Adam Levine’s leaked sexts to the Good Morning America hosts publicly documented affair, the rotation of celebrity scandal and hearsay has been constant. The question as to why Will Smith really slapped at Chris Rock at the Oscars in March inspired conspiracy theories that it was faked. James Corden's alleged Balthazar meltdown similarly saw a number of other stories about the comedian rise to the surface of the gossip well. The Don't Worry Darling gossip, which you will need 25 minutes to get up to fully get up to speed on, swallowed the world for an entire week, with a TikTok from the previous year which purported to explain the drama being held up as social media evidence.

But our growing, morbid fascination with gossip might not be as underhand as it seems, and in some circles gossip is being reclaimed as something good – important even for society. In breakout podcast hit of the yearNormal Gossip, the format goes something like this: Host Kelsey McKinney shares a piece of gossip sent in to her by a listener. Every detail is anonymised but the salacious aspects of the story remain. From rogue hook-ups in a queer football team, to a deceitful knitting influencer, the dopamine hit comes from the fact these narratives are outrageous but real, stuffed with dramatic detail but intriguingly anonymous.