For Project 01, I have settled on producing a how-to guide. Similar to the “_____ For Dummies” series, I want to showcase my research on gossip using that as the North Star. My current thinking suggests that it will eventually tell readers how to gossip “like a pro” or how to do it the “correct” way. I chose this form because I think it’d be interesting to tell people how to gossip, whether it’s teaching them to be more positive in how they do it or it’s teaching them how to do it like the best of the best. A pretty big topic, I've based my research around gossip being a transgressive act, and I'm toying with the idea of using subversion as a way to speak about it in my guide's final form.

“Wanna learn to spill the tea with fervor and pizazz like Wendy Williams? Check this out!”

My target audience is likely young people who consume (and/or produce) pop culture content. Pop culture is full of stories about high profile people, and some people really get entertainment from knowing the ins and outs of famous people, even if they don’t necessarily believe 100% of what they hear. Maybe my guide can give them additional context for how they consume or produce content that is centered around celebrities and influencers.

The guide will likely have a vibrant cover, a table of contents, small illustrations, definitions, and historical context. I like to think of it like an encyclopedia of sorts. I won’t be able to produce a full guide, but I think I should at least be able to visually depict a cover, table of contents, and the outline of a few chapters. I really want it to be representative of the full idea. Experientially, users should be able to search/browse and read/view, and it will ask users to determine if they partake in gossip in a harmful, non-harmful or indifferent way. I want it to cause users/readers to take a step back and assess if they’re causing harm, whether they intend it or not. 

I also toyed with a guide that mimicked an historical guide. This form would aim to teach how gossip has taken place in societies over the last couple hundred years and then ultimately how it has permeated entertainment (radio/talk shows, gossip columns, podcasts, tabloids, etc.). I think there are parallels to this idea and my how-to guide idea, so I don’t think it changes the project completely; it just changes how the story of my research is told. 

I reached out to Margaret to get advice on what stones I should turn over next and to get an idea of a real-life expert in the field I should reach out to. I haven’t been able to schedule a formal session with her yet, but my hope is to have that done by the end of this week. I do know that I want to drill down into the gossip culture that I see on reality TV shows like “Real Housewives…” There’s a lot there that I can unpack, and I think that’ll be a large part of my research this week.

Metaphors We Live By

In reference to this week’s reading, “Metaphors We Live By”, I thought the examples of linguistic metaphorical systems were interesting. I actually use all of the metaphors highlighted in some way, so none really stuck out to me as odd. I will say that it was odd to see them explained in that manner, but that’s because they’ve been a part of our language (well at least mine) since forever that I don’t think I ever stopped to pull them apart and assess what’s really being communicated. 

I use “TIME IS MONEY” probably most often. The motivating rationale for this metaphor, to me, is simply not to waste time or put too much effort into something that may not yield a result. We have an infinite amount of time, and because we can’t get time back, unlike money, we should be precious about how we spend it. I also use oriental metaphors pretty often.

When it comes to gossip and the conversations being held within that space, oriental metaphors are often used to talk about the well-being or status of another person. According to the text, “status is correlated with (social) power and (physical) power is up” and the “physical basis for personal well-being: happiness, health, life, and control—the things that principally characterize what is good for a person—are all up.” I think this communicates the idea of how people talk about other people as being UP or DOWN and the different connotations of what that means, especially when they’re trying to paint an overall picture of a person. The “argument is war” metaphor also has its place here because generally when someone confronts another after suspecting they’ve been gossiped about, it usually is depicted as confrontation. This reading unlocked something in how I want to approach more research on how people communicate their own personal ideas of other people. A very interesting read!