Rumors are meant to be spread like butter on toast but a good gossip has a code. The code varies from gossip to gossip but the code allows for juicy stories to continue to flow in your direction.

If you are an inexperienced gossip, or a bad gossip let me, a revered gossip, be your guide.

Keep secrets 

A gossip worth their salt is never tied to true scandal, sure, people will talk and you’ll be accused of all manner of miserable filth but it will all be easily dispelled. Your secrets are your strength and your ruination. 

Keep your sources’ secrets. If the people who you chew the fat with can’t trust you, you’ll end up sourcing said fat somewhere else. Burn enough sources and you can kiss your status as a trusted gossip goodbye.

Don’t speculate 

The only good gossip is the truth. If you see Jack and Diane having dinner at Chili’s on a Friday night tell everyone that, the picking up your tidbits will come to their own conclusions. 

If you see Jack and Diane porking behind the dumpster at Chili’s on a Tuesday night, that’s a whole other bag of potato chips, wait until Thursday then spill those beans.

Use reliable sources 

Your reputation for reputation ruination teeters on the reliability of your sources, don’t just trust any silly bastard, and don’t go to anyone in HR. 

Find an open book with an ear to the ground. Find the bitch who got shafted by some baby who’s daddy knows the big dogs at the company. Find someone on the switchboard (or whatever). 

Make them your friends.

Verify

These sources may be your friends now but they may be trying to one up you or get good dirt on you. Journalists need two sources and so do you. They need to be independent sources, a bunch of clucking over wine after work is how shit appears out of thin air. 

Got it?

Go forth and share your gossip well.