Todd Gitlin Gossip is a service industry. At the same time, gossip satisfies society's desire to keep its members entangled with one another. A society that hasn't quite outgrown its puritanism is especially disposed to prurience. Gossip is the prude's revenge.
Juicy gossip serves as social cement.
This is as true for smallish groups as it is for society as a whole. For individuals in the group, gossipy knowledge widens the social circle. Vicarious life gives us more lives to live. But of course, as O. J. and Nicole Brown Simpson, Princess Diana, and Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky need hardly have reminded us, we don't just gossip about people we know. We gossip about people we've never met.