The Tea On Gossip With Kelsey McKinney

1A

NPR

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4.4 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"Did you hear? A little birdy told me. Don't tell anyone I said this."

Human beings love to gossip. We all talk about other people – sometimes it's a good thing and sometimes it's not.

But where do we draw that line? Where and how did we learn to gossip? Are there benefits?

We talk to the creator of the "Normal Gossip" podcast, Kelsey McKinney. Her new book is all about how we talk about other people.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Conductor Robert Fron says a good melody captures our attention.
0:04.1	And then it moves you through time.
0:06.3	Music is architecture in time.
0:10.1	If you engage in the moment with what you're listening to,
0:15.0	you do lose a sense of the time around you.
0:18.3	How we experience time.
0:20.6	That's on the TED Radio Hour from NPR.
0:31.8	Gossip.
0:32.8	We all talk about other people.
0:34.3	Sometimes it's a good thing.
0:35.9	Sometimes it's not.
0:36.9	I believe it can be a energy
0:39.7	snatcher because whoever's receiving or giving the gossip, you're going to carry on that energy
0:47.8	to say, oh, should I keep it to myself and or keep the gossip going.
0:55.4	So I believe that gossip is a learned behavior,
0:59.6	and sometimes it could be good gossip.
1:02.0	It doesn't mean it has to be bad.
1:04.5	So depending on the word gossip,
1:08.3	do we think of it as a negative thing or not? Thanks for that message, Charlotte.
1:13.6	Kelsey McKinney has always been a gossip, so much so that she started a podcast to talk about gossip with a
1:19.4	guest. It's called Normal Gossip. Her new book is called, You Didn't Hear It for Me,
1:24.7	mostly True Notes on Gossip. Kelsey McKinney joins us after the break from Philadelphia to spill all the tea.
	...

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