December 2024
Gossip
An Investigation into the Feminine Art of Conversation Originally published in Gossip
Gossip
An Investigation into the Feminine Art of Conversation Originally published in Gossip
There’s a deep connection between textiles, computing, and discourse. There’s a quote I love by Joy Xiang, where she says “Because gossip exists before or beyond verification, it functions as an information commons that cuts across class and power divides.” This idea of an information commons, one that trades in trust and critical judgement, is key to the understanding of my own definition of gossip. It’s a weaving of collective fragments of knowledge, just like the web. Susan Kare’s pixel-based typography made for the original Mac reflects this same logic—a digital tapestry where individual squares combine to create meaning. Most of her iconography even referenced textiles and pattern books. The internet, then, becomes the latest loom, where social networks interlace and gossip form threads of digital culture, from memes to viral rumors.
Gossip is a form of cultural labor that has always walked the line between care and control. It can create boundaries yet also enforce accountability within communities. But beyond its regulatory aspects, gossip is joy—there’s magic in the playful exchange of secrets, the shared laughter over a juicy story. Historically, women have used this joy to resist isolation, finding solidarity and strength in their shared narratives. Gossip is survival—but it’s celebration too, a radical reclaiming of leisure and connection.
What I love about gossip is that it operates on all of these different levels. It’s playful and joyful but also deeply subversive. It survives in whispers, in group chats, in the spaces between what is said outright and what is implied. Gossip is witchcraft—it reshapes hierarchies and carves out a space where women and people can build, share, and resist. The threads may look fragile, but together they weave something strong: a living web.
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