"Preity can make chapattis!"
Sigh! That's one of the news items in DNA After Hrs today. One of Rediff's great news item is "I starved myself to get into a bikini" The accompanying video allows you to see the two-piece in action. Times of India, the one who actually started dumbing down news, is never far behind. "Preity learns the tractor" is one of their many great articles.
My habit of reading news like these started actually with my discovering Rediff's message boards. I find it funny and stop by at Rediff whenever I'm bored or feeling down. I've mentioned about that in one of my earlier posts but unlike me many people must be clicking such news items out of genuine interest. I do not have the statistics about their popularity but I checked with a few colleagues and friends, as they always help me understand life better.
S and M, who are in PR, say that it makes them laugh when they read such news. It's a great 'stress reliever' according to them. N said that 'gossip' helps start a conversation and I've seen N do that with perfect ease with parents who come to her kiddie club. S, Anish's friend's mother and a stay at home mom also said that at get-togethers and parties, how long can one keep talking about 'your son, my son'? Conversations invariably turn to dumb news.
Gossip has moved from being just an idle neighbour chat to a big global business. Wikipedia says that "The publication generally credited as America's first national weekly gossip tabloid is Broadway Brevities and Society Gossip, which was launched in New York in 1916 and edited by a Canadian named Stephen G. Clow. Brevities started out covering high society and the A-list of the New York theater world, but by the 1930s had begun covering more general vice and ran splashy, highly-sensationalised features on sex, drugs, gang violence and crime. This was possibly the first time a gossip magazine had made real efforts to attract readers who weren't members of the elite classes; it didn't presume its readers had a close familiarity with any given social or professional world"
So, there we are, one more thing adopted from America! Long live gossip!
My habit of reading news like these started actually with my discovering Rediff's message boards. I find it funny and stop by at Rediff whenever I'm bored or feeling down. I've mentioned about that in one of my earlier posts but unlike me many people must be clicking such news items out of genuine interest. I do not have the statistics about their popularity but I checked with a few colleagues and friends, as they always help me understand life better.
S and M, who are in PR, say that it makes them laugh when they read such news. It's a great 'stress reliever' according to them. N said that 'gossip' helps start a conversation and I've seen N do that with perfect ease with parents who come to her kiddie club. S, Anish's friend's mother and a stay at home mom also said that at get-togethers and parties, how long can one keep talking about 'your son, my son'? Conversations invariably turn to dumb news.
Gossip has moved from being just an idle neighbour chat to a big global business. Wikipedia says that "The publication generally credited as America's first national weekly gossip tabloid is Broadway Brevities and Society Gossip, which was launched in New York in 1916 and edited by a Canadian named Stephen G. Clow. Brevities started out covering high society and the A-list of the New York theater world, but by the 1930s had begun covering more general vice and ran splashy, highly-sensationalised features on sex, drugs, gang violence and crime. This was possibly the first time a gossip magazine had made real efforts to attract readers who weren't members of the elite classes; it didn't presume its readers had a close familiarity with any given social or professional world"
So, there we are, one more thing adopted from America! Long live gossip!
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