Lara Lee Kelly, aka Lanthane Radium, is on a quest to dismantle what she calls deeply engrained misogynistic propaganda. One of her latest targets is gossiping.
In an attempt to rehabilitate it, the 20-year-old returned to the roots of the term and its evolution over time, presenting the findings of her research in a two-part TikTok miniseries. As of this publication, her videos have over 4 million and 350 thousand views. Clearly, people are interested.
Continue scrolling to check out Kelly's take on gossiping and let us know what you think about it in the comments.
Recently, TikTok user Lanthane Radium posted a two-part TikTok miniseries on gossiping
And the videos already have a combined 4.3 million views
Image credits: Rose-Aimée Bélanger
According to Art Public Montreal, Rose-Aimée Bélanger's inspiration comes "from the simple moment of everyday life. In her feminine sculptures, her 'rounds' as she likes to call them, the expression of the eyes is essential to their understanding and appreciation. The emotions are amplified by the sensuality of the curves."
Les Chuchoteuses is a 2002 bronze sculpture depicting three women, completely absorbed by their conversation. The work was installed as part of an initiative to highlight some of Old Montreal's forgotten spaces.
The earliest known use of this creepy contraption was in Scotland in the 16th-century to punish and humiliate women who were labeled as scolds or nags.
The Houghton Library at Harvard University claims it "was usually an iron muzzle within an iron framework that would go around the head along with a bridle-bit that would go in the mouth and press down on the tongue- thus effectively silencing the offender."
Though some sources indicate that this was just a punishment for women, the Burgh Records of Scotland's major towns reveal that the branks were at times used on men as well: "Patrick Pratt sall sit … bound to the croce of this burgh, in the brankis lockit" (1591 Aberd. B Rec. II. 71) / "He shall be put in the branks be the space of xxiiij houres thairafter" (1559 (c 1650) Dundee B. Laws 19.)
Image credits: Ben Healy
As Sophia Gottfried pointed out in TIME, people usually think of gossip as synonymous with malicious rumors, put-downs, or the breathless propagation of a tabloid scoop. Researchers, however, often define it more broadly.
For example, Megan Robbins, an assistant professor of psychology at The University of California, Riverside, calls it "talking about people who aren't present."
"It's something that comes very naturally to us." Robbins says gossiping is an integral part of conversation, information sharing, and even community building.
In a 2019 meta-analysis published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, Robbins and her colleague found that, of the 52 minutes a day on average the 467 subjects spent gossiping, three-quarters of that gossip was actually neutral.
One subject, for instance, spoke about someone who was watching a lot of movies to stay current. "It was kind of boring," Robbins explains, "not salacious and negative" at all.
But negative gossip was twice as prevalent as positive. The results also revealed that younger people engage in more negative gossip than older adults.
Gossip was overwhelmingly about an acquaintance and not a celebrity.
As you might think, extroverts tend to gossip far more frequently than introverts.
Image credits: Anna Sheffer
Image credits: lanthane_radium
Here's what people said after watching the videos
