ELLE (Canada)

PSYCHE

Kelly Boutsalis on the healing power of celebrity gossip.

- By Kelly Boutsalis

Psst! Haven’t you heard? Gossip might be good for you.

WHEN I REALIZED that I had postpartum anxiety—that lying on the floor crying was not an intrinsic or necessary part of motherhood—I did what I was supposed to do: I talked to my doctor, I got a prescripti­on for Zoloft, I sat in a comfy chair for therapy sessions, I set up a mentalheal­th plan and I researched cringewort­hytome practices like mindful meditation. All of this helped, but I still needed to find a way back to myself.

Then, one day, I tied up my runners, put my newborn son in his stroller and cued up a cuttingly hilarious celebrityg­ossip podcast. I hoped my anxious thoughts would drift away in the breeze, but, I swear, the gossip helped more than the fresh air. When I put in my earbuds to listen to shows like Who? Weekly, I forgot, albeit temporaril­y, about my gnawing fears. Others may visualize babbling brooks or calming sunsets, but I conjured up Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s every public outing as a way to ease my isolation. Hearing about the ups and downs of every Bachelorfr­anchise star made me feel like my brain was having a hotstone massage. How could I worry about my spiritual disorienta­tion when I was learning about Khloé Kardashian’s breakup?

But was this habit really helpful, or was I just desperatel­y imagining that it was?

According to experts, anxious brains like mine have a hypersensi­tive fight-or-flight mode, which is the instinctiv­e physiologi­cal response that is activated during stress. By distractin­g myself with “Why are Pete Davidson and Kate Beckinsale dating?” stories, my brain can stop focusing on the perceived threats spinning in an endless mental loop—and stop sending out distress signals. My Who? Weekly binge sessions were also straight-up fun, which is an introducto­ry coping strategy used in cognitive behavioura­l therapy, says Dr. Judith Laposa, a psychologi­st in the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Division at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. “Oftentimes when we’re depressed [or anxious], we withdraw,” she says. “One of the first things we do in treatment is get people back into the activities that give them a sense of pleasure.”

Gossip is, I’ll admit, a bit of a guilty pleasure. But, I told myself, I’m not the only one enjoying this stuff. Lainey Gossip, my favourite gossip website, run by Toronto-based Lainey Lui, has over 18 million monthly page views, while Who? Weekly episodes are downloaded by thousands every week. And if celebrity gossip helped me feel like my world was no longer spinning out of control, could it have other societal benefits as well? I mean, it’s been around forever, so it must have value, right? Some theories date gossip’s origins back almost two million years. Back then, it took the form of storytelli­ng around the cave or village. For these often-isolated communitie­s, it allowed people to share informatio­n and reinforced morals and values. It’s also a way of bonding: Today, we connect over who bit Beyoncé; thousands of years ago, we could have been having the same conversati­on about our neighbours. “It’s very much a part of human nature; I’m not sure why we have to justify why it unifies us,” says Lui over the phone between filming her shows, The Social and etalk, and working on her website. She has been a crusader for the value of gossip for years, dishing out critical hot takes on her blog since 2004, and taught a course on the subject in the humanities department at Western University in London, Ont. “We need stories, especially in times of need or in low periods of

“We need stories, especially in times of need or in low periods of our lives.”

our lives,” she says. All the better, Lui notes, if the celebrity crisis is tied up neatly in a bow— resolution that we so often lack in our own lives. BuzzFeed’s Anne Helen Petersen, who focused on the history of gossip for her doctorate in media studies, argues that these celebrity narratives can act like a mirror to our own lives: “They offer an opportunit­y for introspect­ion.” For example, says Petersen, maybe your obsession with the status of Jennifer Aniston’s womb has something to do with your own complicate­d feelings about motherhood.

But what if what we’re hearing—and sharing—isn’t true? “When gossip is irresponsi­ble and hasn’t been properly sourced, it’s reflective of some of the most negative aspects of our culture,” says Lui, who will scrupulous­ly double-check and confirm with her sources before breaking celeb news, like Brad and Angie going to Africa to deliver baby Shiloh in 2006. “We have a large segment of our society that is misogynist­ic, racist and inequitabl­e, so gossip coming out of those parts is going to be misogynist­ic, racist and inequitabl­e.” The wild west of the internet—where many of us get our gossip fix—hasn’t helped matters. The aughts reign of Perez Hilton and the nowdefunct The Superficia­l are nothing compared to today’s trolling and Twitter rumour mill.

Perhaps I am drawn to celeb gossip because my emotional distance from the subjects— Beyoncé and I aren’t BFFs, sadly—means there is a low risk that their negativity will contribute to my anxiety. “For some people, celebrity gossip is a way of escaping their own day-to-day existence,” explains Laposa. It’s one thing to pore over the details of the Tristan Thompson/ Jordyn Woods whodunit and quite another to gossip with my friend about her toxic in-laws, especially since I will definitely bump into them at her next backyard barbecue.

Two years of celeb gossip later, my anxiety is largely under control. I’m still on medication, but whenever I feel a panic attack coming on, I cue up an episode of Who? Weekly and grab my runners. The knot in my stomach lessens when I hear hosts Bobby and Lindsey talking about Miranda Lambert’s surprise marriage to a hot cop. My pulse slows when I listen to the details of JLo’s engagement. Gossip may seem superficia­l, but it’s also my soothing reminder that whether you’re a country star finding love or a new mom just trying to get through the day, we are all in this together.

 ??  ??
 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Canada