In Small Towns, Gossip Moves to the Web, and Turns Vicious

MOUNTAIN GROVE, Mo. — In the small towns nestled throughout the Ozarks, people like to say that everybody knows everybody’s business — and if they do not, they feel free to offer an educated guess

One of the established places here for trading the gossip of the day is Dee’s Place, a country diner where a dozen longtime residents gather each morning around a table permanently reserved with a members-only sign for the “Old Farts Club,” as they call themselves, to talk about weather, politics and, of course, their neighbors.

But of late, more people in this hardscrabble town of 5,000 have shifted from sharing the latest news and rumors over eggs and coffee to the Mountain Grove Forum on a social media Web site called Topix, where they write and read startlingly negative posts, all cloaked in anonymity, about one another.

And in Dee’s Place, people are not happy. A waitress, Pheobe Best, said that the site had provoked fights and caused divorces. The diner’s owner, Jim Deverell, called Topix a “cesspool of character assassination.” And hearing the conversation, Shane James, the cook, wandered out of the kitchen tense with anger.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/us/small-town-gossip-moves-to-the-web-anonymous-and-vicious.html

:rofl:

Since when has small town gossip been anything other than vicious?

a long time ago

I would rather have people whisper about me than write about me online

That's why I thought "turning vicious" was so damn funny.

Or perhaps I was on the receiving end of too much evil gossip back then.

I'm basically uninterested in peoples' personal lives, that makes me a bit of an odd duck anyway.

stuff.

some bad stuff flying around, with or without the internet.

I live in a little town and don't go to church, so we don't socialize with them. They make stuff up. When we painted the house blue they thought we must be "Mezzcans".

They are jealous of the fences.

They'll decide we are witches anyway. :shrug:

After reading the really awful things said online in Mountain Grove, I was moved to check out my own Maine town's forum on Topix. Like Mountain Grove, mine is a town of about 5,000. I was relieved and pleased to see that, in my town, there isn't any vicious gossip going on. In fact, people are thanking each other for posting articles, reminding people to vote, and to attend the local film festival. It makes me proud to be a resident here.