Episode 338: The Case For Gossip with Kelsey McKinney
Doree and Elise invite ex-Normal Gossip host Kelsey McKinney on to discuss her new book You Didn’t Hear This From Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip, how understanding gossip is connected to Mean Girls, the Gaylor conspiracy and subculture, and the level of skepticism you should have based on the person you hear information from.
Photo Credit: Ashley Gellman
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Transcript
The transcript for this episode Ai generated.
Doree (00:10):
Hello and welcome to Forever 35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Doree Shafrir.
Elise (00:17):
And I'm Elise Hu. And we are two friends who like to talk a lot about serums.
Doree (00:22):
And before we get to our little check-in, I just want to mention that next week we are starting our friendship month.
Elise (00:33):
Yay. An entire themed month on friendship,
Doree (00:38):
And we're kicking it off the week of Valentine's and Galentine's Day. So seems sort of apt. And we're also going to be having one of our friendship experts answer questions about friendship at the end of the month. So please call, text, email us your questions about friendship if you need advice. And you can call or text us at (781) 591-0390 and email us at Forever 35 Podcast at gmail com.
Elise (01:12):
I feel like this is going to be a really fruitful month of conversations door because when we just, in the course of taking questions and voicemails for the mini apps on Wednesdays, we get a lot of questions about friendship anyway.
Doree (01:25):
We
Elise (01:26):
Do people moving into new towns and wanting to make friends, maintaining friendships, ending friendships just like this is a very key relationship in our lives. So these guests are going to be our guide this month. And then when y'all have questions, one of our guests is going to be back to answer yours. So
Doree (01:46):
Yeah, I think we're going to learn a lot. Yeah, I agree, Elise. I agree. And in a sort of indirect way, our guest today is about friendship touches on themes of friendship because she writes and has a podcast or had a podcast about gossip, which is a way that friendships are made, sustained, maintained, and sustained. Yeah. So it's interesting that she is our last guest before Friendship Month actually kicks off.
Elise (02:22):
If you don't know, we are talking about the great, the indefatigable, Kelsey McKinney, who is the longtime host of normal gossip who only recently passed the baton, and we will do a formal intro for her later. But Doree and I are super excited, so we must preview now that we have Kelsey on the show today.
Doree (02:41):
Yes, yes, yes. Anyway, what's going on with you, Elise?
Elise (02:47):
Well, speaking of friendship, I gathered folks for Lunar New Year for a little banquet. Yes. How was that banquet? Last Wednesday? It would be now happy year of the Snake to everyone who celebrates. It's the year of the snake. All right. Yeah. Very appropriate. Totally. But we did do this lunar New Year banquet at those lazy Susan tables at a Chinese restaurant. Love that. And one thing that came up during Lazy Susan Ning was there is kind of a collective, you learn a kind of collective and communal mentality when sitting around a lazy Susan, because when you want to spin it, you have to mind everyone else. And whether they are grabbing food at the same moment, or they are also trying to go to turn the lazy Susan at the middle of the table. And so there was a kid at our table, a sixth grader, and he just went for it and decided he wanted kung pow and decided to spin. But then other people also happened to be going for whatever dish was in front of them at the moment. And it was a great example of how these lazy Susans teach you to be more communal or think in a more communal.
Doree (03:59):
I love that
Elise (04:00):
It sparked a little conversation. And then one of my friends was like, do you think that cultures that sit around round tables end up being more, think more of the collective because ever go, you have to mind everyone else. Interesting. That's
Doree (04:19):
So interesting.
Elise (04:22):
The other thing that was really funny about this dinner was that they were so slammed. They were seriously in the weeds. I don't know if three people called it sick or something, but there was one point 35 minutes into the meal where one of my friends was like, could we get water, please? Oh, no. And the waiter was just like, no. Oh no.
Doree (04:48):
And then we were like, oh, okay. Right. I guess, okay, just deal with it.
Elise (04:58):
Exactly. The whole attitude of the service was just deal with it. And then we tried Chinese. I had one other Chinese speaking friend, and we were like, oh, we did the whole like, oh, sorry, excuse me, but in Chinese to see if we could maybe sway them more. And it was not helpful at all.
Doree (05:15):
Right.
Elise (05:16):
But that was a fun time. It was a fun time. Anyway,
Doree (05:20):
Okay.
Elise (05:20):
Well that's good. And then in the end, it came out to $31 per person, so quite a deal. Love
Doree (05:27):
That. Yes.
Elise (05:29):
Yeah, quite a deal. That's great. And that's with Tip. And my friend Alex who was there, he's like, did you do the customary 20% tip for that kind of service? No, I still tip them 20%. He's like, this is why there's no accountability. This is why there's no accountability.
Doree (05:43):
It's not like it makes a difference because the service was so bad.
Elise (05:46):
Yeah.
Doree (05:47):
Oh, that's really funny.
Elise (05:51):
Yeah.
Doree (05:51):
Well,
Elise (05:53):
I also, I have one other sort of Chinese tale to tell, which my foster kitten Minks.
Doree (06:00):
Yes.
Elise (06:01):
So still at my house, still stinking it up.
Doree (06:05):
Oh boy. Okay. Okay.
Elise (06:07):
He's a frequent user of the Litter Box, and he's just the sweetest cat though. He's like always on me. I really getting attached to Minks. And then Abe, my cat, who's been in my family for many years, the cat that is not Foster, Abe and Minks are starting to get along. And then the original owner of Minks who had to surrender him checked in on him, and she gave me a call and she's like, how is Ming doing? And I was like, what? Who? And she goes, the Ming. And I'm like, what? M's name is actually Ming, MING. What? Ming is Chinese? Yo. What?
Doree (06:50):
Oh my God. How did this mix up occur?
Elise (06:55):
I have no idea. I guess I just named him Minks. I thought it was minks when I went over to the house that night on January 9th, in the frenzy of his house burning down and them needing to surrender their pets, and I thought it was Minks, MINX. And all along we've been calling him Minks, and it turns out that's he to a Chinese American family and had a Chinese name. Anyway, he's Ming.
Doree (07:19):
Wow. Was his original family Chinese?
Elise (07:23):
No.
Doree (07:24):
Oh, that's even weirder.
Elise (07:28):
We are still searching for a house forever. Home for me, the Ming.
Doree (07:33):
Okay, alright.
Elise (07:34):
But emotionally, maybe it won't happen. We'll see. Rob keeps going, this is our cat now. Right?
Doree (07:42):
You're just in denial about it. But that's okay. Well, Elise, should we introduce our guest?
Elise (07:56):
Yes, you should go for it.
Doree (07:58):
Kelsey McKinney, who is our guest, is a reporter and writer who lives in Philadelphia. She's a co-owner and features writer@defector.com and is the newly retired co-host of the wildly popular podcast, normal Gossip. Her first novel, gods Spare the Girls was published in the summer of 2021, and her first nonfiction book, you didn't hear this for me, mostly true Notes on Gossip is Out next week. Yay. Yay. And she does freelance, but she says she's only taking very stupid and fun assignments right now.
Elise (08:39):
What a dream. What a dream. A dream. She's so much fun to talk to. She's a huge, she's great Kelsey fan. We had a delightful conversation with her and it went all sorts of directions. We're so excited for you to hear it.
Doree (08:54):
There were multiple times where I was like, I don't really have a question. I just want to talk about this thing with you. Can we just talk about this thing? And she was like, yeah, the best kind of conversation. Yeah, she was great, and I think you'll really enjoy the conversation that we had with her. Before we get to her though, we mentioned this at the top of the show, but reminder that our voicemail and text number is 7 8 1 5 9 1 0 3 9 0. You can email us at Forever 35 podcast@gmail.com on our website Forever 35 podcast.com. We have links to everything we mentioned on the show. We're on Instagram at Forever 35 podcast, and our Patreon is at patreon.com/forever three five, where we do weekly casual chats, we do monthly pop culture recommendation episodes. We do our Forever 35 questionnaire, which is a fun mini mini interview of our guests. And yeah, it's just a fun time over there, so check that out. Alright, here is Kelsey. Welcome to Forever 35. Elise and I are so excited to have you on the show. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you both so much for having me. Yes, of course. We always start off by asking our guests if they have any sort of self-care practice, and this can be very, very broadly defined. So is there anything you're doing right now that I guess brings you any sort of calm or joy?
Kelsey McKinney (10:38):
Oh, thank you for asking. As you know, I'm in the lead up when we're recording this. So the publication of this book, my body is at a very high stress level, which is bad. So I go to a weightlifting gym, which is strength training. So I've been going to pick up very heavy things and put them back down, which has been making me feel better. And then I've also been watching really old episodes of The Real Housewives of New York, so we contain multitudes.
Elise (11:07):
We sure do.
Doree (11:07):
Yes. I watched the first couple seasons of The Real Housewives of New York and interviewed some of them way back in the day. Yes. Okay. Do not, lemme de real with that. I'm going to lose it. Jill Zarin, we had a whole breakfast together.
Kelsey McKinney (11:27):
Oh God. Okay, we're going to sideline on that later. Just to
Elise (11:35):
Bring us back please. Kelsey McKinney. See, I'm really serious. I'm like Kelsey McKinney. I'm doing the full name, full name, full name, my fellow Texan. The vast majority of our listeners know you from normal gossip, which you started with Alex Laughlin and recently announced you're going to be stepping away from. And so my first question is just how you're feeling about this big decision and what you've been up to or what you've been thinking about as you design your next steps post
Kelsey McKinney (12:08):
Show and post book. I love, I mean, I love normal gossip and I loved working on it so much. It was such a blast for me. And I spent three years of my life, four years of my life almost doing it. And it's the longest I've ever worked on anything in my career, which is maybe a testament to how poorly stabilized journalism and new media are that that was the longest I was ever able to really dig into something and I'm feeling really great. I have stepped away at a time where I feel like I made the best product I can make, and I feel really great about all of the work that we did together, and I am so thrilled to hand it off to Rachel Hampton, who I think is a genius and a very upcoming bright star, and I think she's going to kill it. I've been listening to some of the early stuff they're working on and I'm like, she's going to blow me out of the water, which is the best compliment in the world. So what have I been working on? I've been working on promoting this book mainly, but I've also been having an opportunity to have creative thoughts. Again, when you're
Elise (13:12):
So
Kelsey McKinney (13:12):
Deep in a project that's as big as normal gossip, you can't really come up for air. I wrote every script of the podcast and all of those scripts for 3000, 4,000 words long and that's 20 scripts a year, so I've been buried for a while.
Doree (13:30):
Yeah, I get it. I get it. I mean, I know you host retired almost a year ago and Elise came on and the show has evolved and changed. It's not the exact same show as it was before, but people move on.
Kelsey McKinney (13:50):
Yeah, I think it's nice as a creative too, to make something a little different, right? I'm sure for you it's been interesting to do the same project with someone else here that it gives it a new life and makes it exciting. Again, you never want your work creatively to feel stale and you're just plugging in pieces.
Doree (14:09):
Right? Yeah, and I've said before, I also, for me personally, I knew I never wanted to have Kate version two, like a doppelganger. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You cloned her. Right. And I think it's cool to see that the thing, the same show can exist and the ethos of it can still exist with a different person, and I know that that is what will happen to normal gossip as well. I'm glad you're feeling good about it too. I would actually love to get into a little bit more of what we were just casually talking about before we started recording, which is the origin of the book and why you wanted to write this book and how there hasn't really been a comprehensive book like this before. But I'm also interested in this idea of you couldn't talk about everything, and so I also just kind want to hear about how you decided what you wanted to put in the book.
Kelsey McKinney (15:09):
Yeah, so it's funny because when normal gossip first started taking off, when it started becoming more popular, and a lot of people were listening to it, my beautiful agent who I love very much, Dana Murphy, was getting a lot of emails that were like, does Kelsey want to write a book about gossip? There are no books about gossip. And I kept being like, no, I don't want to write a book about gossip. I'm just doing this fun thing that I'm doing telling these gossip stories. And that's it. And then genuinely, I read Sabrina ER's book Everywhere the Light reaches, which I think is a beautiful book. And I thought it kind of like when you read a book that's very good and kind of open something in you where you're like, oh, there's a way into this thing that I hadn't considered, and I sent Dana this four minute long voice memo that was like, Hey, I think I figured it out actually.
(15:59):
Because I really think that when you're working creatively as a writer and a thinker and a cultural critic, you're trying to figure out which format a story is going to communicate itself best in. So the reason normal gossip works is that it's an audio medium. I couldn't do that same show in writing because it wouldn't work, the tone wouldn't be communicated. And so I wanted to write the book because book, there were things I wanted to say and talk about and think about really deeply that just didn't belong in this show about people going on a bachelorette trip and lighting things on fire. Totally. They were just very different. And so one of the big problems I had working on the book is that gossip is this huge thing. It's really amorphous and it takes over a lot of your life. And when you start looking at the world through a question of is this gossip or is it not?
(16:51):
More often than not, you're like, yeah, that's gossip, right? The Pope is gossiping actually. Right? It's pretty easy to convince yourself. I was saying that something I really struggled with was thinking that it needed to be everything that I was like, this book is one of the first books about gossip comprehensively that isn't academic. There are several academic books. And I was like, oh, I have to include all this stuff. I have all these things I need to include, and at the end of the day, I'm not the right person to talk about all of those things that I'm not a subject matter expert on everything. And so at some point I realized somebody else is going to write another great book about gossip one day, and I hope they do, and I hope when they do, they come to me, I have a list of shit that I couldn't write that I'll just hand to them and be like, here you go, babe. But what comes
Elise (17:37):
Through so well in the book is just the case for gossip because you do touch on the history. You do touch on how so many of our oldest stories in the Western canon, the Odyssey, the Iliad, they're all actually oral tradition. They started as gossip in the first place. There's kind of a moral case for gossip. There is a component of it is that it's like a matter of good citizenship. And so make the case for gossip for us, especially if there are folks like you who grew up in certain religious traditions in which it's truly frowned upon.
Kelsey McKinney (18:14):
Yeah. So it's funny because it's so easy for me to make this argument at this point because I've read so much of this and it's an anthropological argument. It's not even me. There are anthropologists from way back saying that they believe that the only reason we can talk at all, the reason we developed language as a species was to gossip, was to be able to tell each other This man is dangerous, or that tribe is doing this, or we've gotten information from these people that we can use. The ability to share information about each other is fundamental to being a person. And so I think when we talk about gossip in the scary font that is bred full of sins and whatever, you're not usually talking about gossip, what people are actually talking about when they say gossip is evil or it hurts people or those kinds of things. They're usually talking about slander or libel. They're talking about lies, which is not what gossip means. Gossip is supposed to be just conversation between two people about someone who's not present. It's not intentionally malicious.
Doree (19:22):
Sorry, this isn't really a
Kelsey McKinney (19:23):
Spoiler because it's no one, I don't believe in spoilers.
Doree (19:26):
Anyway, so go for it. That you had kind of started off taking the point of view that gossip was unfairly maligned and you were going to sort of redeem it and instead you kind of came to the conclusion as you write. The more I read and thought, the more I took gossip submissions for the podcast, told them to the world and watched the way listeners responded to them, the more I realized what gossip actually is a way of searching for truth. And I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that because I was like, Ooh, she's really getting to something here.
Kelsey McKinney (20:08):
I think we're in an interesting moment right now where gossip has been redeemed and people are starting to do an interesting thing where they're saying gossip is a moral good. So a pendulum that was at one point saying, gossip is evil talk, everyone has to stop doing it has now swung to the point where people are saying that actually me talking about my best friend behind her back is good for society. And it's like, all right, that's maybe a little too far from my comfort. I don't think that gossip is a moral good or a moral evil. I think it's a tool and can't, a hammer isn't a moral good or a moral evil, right? A hammer is what you do with it. And I think the more I thought about gossip, which was constantly and incessantly and looking at everything through a lens of gossip, the more I kind of realized that what I was actually trying to do when I was gossiping was trying to figure out what I believed you're talking about someone else trying to figure out if they're good or not.
(21:10):
The best example of this is reality television, right? Because you watch reality television and you watch them gossip and you realize everybody thinks that they know the truth. Everyone telling their version of the story thinks that their version is right. And as a viewer, you're like, I've seen all three of these versions. None of them are right. You're all wrong in some really subtle way. And I think when you look at a lot of gossip stories, you can almost get to the point where you can figure out maybe where something started. But yeah, I don't know. It's complicated.
Elise (21:44):
It reminds me of a part of the book that I'd love for you to unpack a little bit, which was when you were analyzing Mean Girls and The New Mean Girls. So there was Mean Girls the original movie in the Aughts, which is a cultural milestone, but then lately, or more recently, the Mean Girls Musical came out, which was the movie adaptation of the musical, which they then had to update, and there were certain elements of the story that had to be changed or were changed, but then kind of had ripple effects. So why don't you set that up for us?
Kelsey McKinney (22:19):
Sure. Yeah. It's funny because the essay in the book that's About Mean Girls is also about Me Too. And a lot of times when people have been asking me about the book, they're separating those two things. They're saying, can you talk about gossip in Mean Girls? And can you talk about it in Me Too? And it's been really interesting because I think it's hard to recognize that those two things are connected. And I am obsessed with that because the original Mean Girls, I'm going to pretend that people have never seen this movie. Everyone has seen it, but it's like four popular girls and they have this cool book Full of Secrets, and the book Full of Secrets is called The Burn Book and things Inside the Book of Secrets. It's everything from this girl made out with a hot dog to at the very real and dangerous side a coach is making out with a student.
(23:09):
And that is a really pivotal part of the First Mean Girls movie because one of the pages in the burn book is a lie, which is that Tina Faye's character is dealing drugs. And the whole reason that they have to take that book seriously is because one of those pages is true. And the page in there that is true is that a coach has been baking out with students, which is a huge problem, a legal problem, an ethical problem. It's awful. And that is why this book is taken so seriously, is that it has this kind of deep, ugly truth in it. And when I went to see The New Mean Girls movie, I was really surprised going in because I knew that John Ham had agreed to play Coach Carr. And Coach Carr is the character in the first movie who is making out with teen Girls on camera.
(23:56):
That's part of the movie. And I was like, why on earth would this man agree to do this role? That's crazy. And then you watch it and it's because they excised that whole plot. It doesn't exist anymore. And I find that interesting because it makes the movie more palatable, it makes it less complicated, and it also defangs the burn book in a way. It makes the burn book just this silly little girly thing full of stupid girly secrets that they're tittering about. And that's a real problem, right? Because part of what's so interesting about the secrets that people carry and the gossip that we share is that there are usually pieces of truth behind almost all of those things. If a rumor has weight and can fly, there's something there. And so I think it always really bothered me watching the new version that they had taken it out because I was like, I think that's part of what makes the first movie so great is that it is really complicated, is kind of dark.
Elise (25:00):
Okay, let's take a break and we will be right back.
Doree (25:10):
I feel like we're in this dangerous cultural moment where gossip has also been weaponized by people to spread conspiracy theories and all kinds of things that do not have a basis in truth. And I'm wondering how you think we can combat that. I know that's obviously not that misinformation. Well, I know that's not your job, but I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on the way that gossip has been weaponized in this way?
Kelsey McKinney (25:48):
Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's scary. There is a move happening right now, and this happened forever. We're not in a new situation where people are saying, I'm going to use rumors and gossip as a way to create a conspiracy theory against the government, which I can then use to ruin people's lives. That has happened forever. There's evidence of it happening in ancient Rome. What's complicated about the moment we're in right now is how fast you can spread that shit, right? It's not just like I tell you and you tell your sister, and your sister tells her a group of friends, and now our section of the community knows. It's like, I can go on TikTok and at the most innocuous level lay out a bunch of Instagram Easter eggs that Taylor Swift has posted and say, reputation Taylor's version is coming next week. And there's actually no basis for that. It's just my, based on some weird facts that I've kind of cherrypicked to make an argument, and that's really scary. Something I've been thinking a lot about in talking about this book is how can you determine whether or not your gossip is something that you should take seriously or whether it's something you should be skeptical of?
(27:06):
And my instinct is always that you should be skeptical of everything, but the degree of the person giving you this information is both from you and from the source of the gossip, the higher degree of skepticism you should have. So if someone who you don't know who's on your phone in front of your face is telling you something, you should be skeptical of them. You have no knowing whether or not that person is trustworthy or not. And if they're telling you something that, especially if it is baked in what I would call nefarious intent. So the idea that this is happening because the government hates you or whatever it is, you should be very, very skeptical of that.
Doree (27:50):
I really like that you brought up the gay.
Kelsey McKinney (28:00):
I'm waiting for somebody to get really mad at me about this. I'm like, it's going to come. Somebody's going to be mad, but
Doree (28:04):
Go ahead. I'm not mad. I'm like, I want to get into it. Because to me, that felt like
Elise (28:12):
All of, wait, set this up first. There was a
Doree (28:13):
Gay Okay, sorry, sorry, sorry. Yes. So for years, there have been a group of Taylor Swift fans who call themselves gays who think that Taylor Swift is gay and just hasn't come out publicly and have parsed all of her lyrics, all of her songs, everything she has ever done in her personal life, and found what they think are Easter eggs and clues to her gayness. Kelsey, would you say that that is okay? Yeah, I think that's right. Okay. And all of this has sort of existed on, I don't want to say the fringes, but it hadn't really been mainstreamed. And then someone wrote an op-ed in the New York Times that was like, Hey, here's all the evidence that Taylor Swift is gay. And it was basically a gay PowerPoint presentation.
Kelsey McKinney (29:10):
Yeah, it broke containment.
Doree (29:12):
Yes, exactly right. It broke containment, and it was this sort of fascinating moment where you saw all of these conspiracy theories and all this gossip that has kind of existed in the ether in on social media, on TikTok, on Reddit, and now it had been kind of taken out of there. And so it was this fascinating cultural moment. So I don't know. I don't really have a question here. I just kind of wanted to talk about it.
Kelsey McKinney (29:45):
Yeah, I could talk about it until the cows come home. Everyone has their own bias on this. Whether you think Taylor Swift kissed Carly Kloss on the mouth or not, is that's between you and whatever God you believe in, right? That's not my business. You can believe whatever you want about someone you've never met, right? That's
(30:03):
Just how it goes. But what I find so interesting about the Gayler stuff in particular is like, listen, I grew up evangelical. I am well trained in the ability to manipulate any close reading of a text into what I wanted to say. So I can't fault anyone for being able to look at these lyrics and say, here's what I see in them. Yeah, yeah, that's great. Whatever. But I think the thing that is so disconcerting to me about the Gaylor stuff and many other celebrity drama that we have seen in the past few years is that there's a kind of internal belief that fans have when they're talking about this, that they know the right answer. They're like, well, I know that this is true because I know Taylor Swift, and for me, I'm like, you don't know her. She only knows a hundred people, and they all have a hundred million dollars. It's you. She's one of the most private people in the world because she's also one of the richest she has to be. So you don't know. They've never, in fact, the only things that have ever been said publicly about this are her emphatically saying, I'm an ally.
Elise (31:20):
Yeah.
Kelsey McKinney (31:21):
And so you get into a really muddy space where it's like, one, there's a very long history in this country and others of outing people who do not want to be outed. So even if she is, it's not your fucking business. And two, it's a weird situation where it's like, you dunno her, you dunno, this woman, she's a stranger, and you are so hell bent on your opinion being the right one, which is really scary to me.
Elise (31:47):
I mean, we're really seeing that with the celebrity lawsuits right now, the dueling celebrity lawsuits between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, and then our feeds being full of these Twitter sleuths, or not Twitter, TikTok, sleuths making cases based on close readings of the lawsuits and the evidence released and all of that.
Kelsey McKinney (32:06):
I mean, it would've been really helpful for me if they had done this while I was writing the book instead of after I was done with it. But it's really interesting watching the kind of true he said, she said of the Baldon Lively case where you're seeing people come out in full force on one side after every single update. And it's like, well, you should maybe wait, maybe hold your judgment until the next shoe drops
Elise (32:34):
So
Kelsey McKinney (32:34):
That you know what you're looking at here. Because so much of celebrity culture right now is about controlling a narrative. It's about making sure that your side is the one seen as the heroes regardless of what you're doing. And the truth of reality is just messier than that. Usually victims are never blameless. People are messy and difficult to, it's not as simple as we want it to be, especially as outsiders.
Elise (33:02):
So this leads me to a question about sort of behind the curtain at normal gossip, which is because you had so many submissions of gossip,
Kelsey McKinney (33:11):
And
Elise (33:11):
These stories involve so many characters and sometimes animals, goldfish, hermit crabs, like my episode.
Kelsey McKinney (33:18):
Totally.
Elise (33:20):
How did you determine the truth or truth in quotes to the level of your satisfaction in order to tell the story?
Kelsey McKinney (33:31):
Oh, I mean, we said from the very beginning, it's not journalism, right? We're not doing journalism on normal gossip. We were never doing it, which means that, okay, what is truth? Right? That's the big question here, because you could even argue that from a journalistic perspective of what is the truth. You choose who your sources
Elise (33:49):
Are,
Kelsey McKinney (33:50):
You choose what questions you ask them. At the end of the day, everything is put through a filter. And so what we were trying to do in relationship to truth with the normal gossip stories is get to emotional truth. So we were changing names, we were changing locations. We were sometimes changing animals to other animals. We were changing bird lamps from other kind of lamps. It was like we were making all these little adjustments. And those are because we didn't want to hurt anyone. We didn't want, the purpose of the podcast was never to hurt anyone or put their shit on display. We didn't want to do that. And so we tried as best as we could to figure out what's the heart of this story, and if it went through eight different people, which parts would stay. And that was kind of the thought experiment we were always doing.
(34:40):
And part of the way we would do this is we would pick the stories we were going to use, we would talk about them, and then I would think about them for however long it took before it was time for me to write the script. And then I would write down what I remembered before I went back to the doc, because I was like, by the time I got back to the doc to write the script, I had changed stuff in my head. In my version of the story. I had made it different. And that was always really fascinating because every time I was like this one I remember perfectly. Every week I would be like, this one, I actually remember exactly the same. Nothing has changed. And then I would open the document and be like, oh my God, this is not what we had before. And then I would kind of marry them into the new story, which is like, okay, so these are the parts that mattered. These are the emotional truths of the story that were important.
Elise (35:29):
Well, Kelsey has, I think I kind of already know the answer to this question because it is so baked into your personality, but I was curious whether focusing on the structure of storytelling gossip, like retelling gossip and researching the history and the weight of it for your book, has it dulled or ruined any of your personal enjoyment of gossip and gossiping?
Kelsey McKinney (35:55):
Oh, that's interesting. I think in some ways, no. Right. I can listen to anyone talk about anything, even anyone I've never heard of before for any amount of time. It's how I became interested in F1 just by watching one Netflix documentary where they were like, this guy hates this guy. And I was like, all right, I'm locked in. I now care deeply about this. But I do think it has, in a couple of ways, it's made me a little bit more of a difficult gossip, that one, I'm much more skeptical than I used to be. I have, because of the podcast, experienced a very interesting and rare thing where I would be told a gossip story. I would rewrite it right into my cadence and my tone and my order, and I would put it in a voice memo. I would send it off to someone
(36:45):
Because I couldn't put it on the podcast for whatever reason. And several times, a story that I did that with has made it back to me from someone else, right? They've said, I have something great. You're going to love it. And then they've proceeded to tell me a story in my cadence that I scripted in my order. And I'm like, oh. So that's interesting because this has now been through eight people and it's returned, right? Weird. And so it's made me a lot more skeptical because I realize everybody believes that the story they heard came from a friend of a friend. Everyone believes that. They're all saying, I got this information from this person who saw it firsthand. And I would be sitting there saying, I know that didn't happen because my source was there, and I have a voice memo from two years ago that I sent. And so that is an interesting problem that has made me a lot more skeptical, and I think I've gotten a lot better. I've gossiping. So now it's like while people are talking, I'm kind of thinking about how I would do it differently, which is very annoying. Should stop.
Elise (37:52):
You're not giving people notes though. Are you giving people notes as they're telling you a story? Like, oh, no. You could cut out the middle section here and maybe speed up getting to the climax. Just in my heart,
Kelsey McKinney (38:05):
We're
Elise (38:05):
Such huge fans of yours, and
Kelsey McKinney (38:08):
Thank you, likewise to both of you. I'm thrilled to be
Doree (38:12):
Here. Thank you.
Elise (38:13):
And so excited about the book. Oh, sorry.
Doree (38:15):
Yeah. And I was just going to ask if our listeners want to catch you on book tour, where can they get that information? And do you want to just give us a quick preview of some of the cities you're stopping in?
Kelsey McKinney (38:25):
Totally. Yeah. So all of the tickets are@kelseybikinibook.com, which will show you the huge list of cities. But we're doing the East Coast, New York, Boston, the Philly, where I live, we're doing the West Coast, San Francisco, or nope, not San Francisco. I lied. Maybe later. Seattle, la, Dallas, all sorts of places. So it'll be really fun. I'm working on this story that I'm going to tell at that show, so come out, it'll be fun, I promise.
Elise (38:54):
Okay, fantastic. Great. Kelsey McKinney, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you both for having me.
Doree (39:03):
Kelsey was such a delight.
Elise (39:05):
Yeah, go get her book. Everyone
Doree (39:06):
Go get her book. She's also so cool. She's just like a cool person.
Elise (39:10):
Yeah. We'll
Doree (39:11):
Go see
Elise (39:12):
Her when she is
Doree (39:12):
Here live. Yes. I'm so excited for that. So we're in the intention zone last week. My intention was to have fun at sectionals, and I'm here to report that I had fun at sectionals.
Elise (39:26):
Yeah, you did. Yeah,
Kelsey McKinney (39:27):
You
Elise (39:27):
Did.
Doree (39:28):
It was great. I had a really good time. I'm still doing my a hundred days of stickers. I have not missed a day yet. I brought the sticker calendar with me. So good to the desert and some stickers. You got to
Elise (39:41):
Earn that sticker.
Doree (39:42):
Yeah, I got to earn that sticker. You can't make up days. The whole point of this is that the bar is set so low that you shouldn't have to make up days. My intention this week is to just keep going. Just keep going. Just keep swimming as my namesake. Just keep going. Yes.
Elise (40:03):
Yes. As Doree says, my intention was to finish act two. I can proudly report that I'm only one scene away.
Doree (40:14):
Oh my God. Amazing.
Elise (40:15):
Complete. But yeah, I was just like, I'm doing it. I'm just doing it. It's not good. Just to be clear, it is not good. There's not emotional weight and there's no smart turns of phrase or ideas in there yet. But I just filled it out. Basically. I've made it to the end. And I think you can't start getting it better without actually having some play there first. Having something.
Doree (40:39):
Totally.
Elise (40:40):
So that's in. And then this week, I need to calm down. I've been super irritable ever since. Our government has started getting hollowed out, and I'm watching just like catastrophe every day. Every day seemed to be worse than the
Doree (40:56):
Previous one. And
Elise (40:57):
So I need to calm down. And maybe one action I can take to calm down is to go on a long walk with Oscar each day. So I'm going to intend right here on this your show that I'm going to walk my Golden Daily because I don't currently. And he needs it. And I think I need it more. I think I need it more.
Doree (41:18):
I love that. Okay. You heard it here first, everybody.
Elise (41:24):
We're going to start walking.
Doree (41:25):
This is also the time of the month where we thank our Patreon supporters who are at the $10 level or above. And we are so grateful for you all. If you want to also support us on Patreon and get all of the aforementioned benefits that we talked about at the top of the show, you can do that at patreon.com/forever. Three five. So thank you to the following supporters.
Elise (41:49):
Thank you to Caitlin h Katie, Ashley Taylor, Theresa Anderson, Michelle Maya, Barbara Chis, Amy, Sarah Fitz, Amy Schnitzer, Heather Hale, Megan Donald, Prue, Jr. Helen De MOIs, Shelly Lee, Kim Beagler, Sarah, Sarah Boozy, Alison Cohen, Susan Eth, Melissa McClean, Linny Jones, Fran, Kelsey Wolf, Dee, Laura, Eddie, Elle, APDI, Valerie, Bruno, Julie, Daniel, Katie, Tron, E, Jackson, Alicia, Amy, Mako. Liz, rain. J. DK. Jennifer Smith, Hannah, m Julie Putt, Maddie oday, Marissa, Lauren, Gitlin. Sarah, be Maria, Diana, Coco Bean, Laura Hadden, Josie, H, Nikki, Bossert, Juliana Duff, Angie, James, Tiffany G, Diane M. Martin, Emily McIntyre, Stephanie Ana, Elizabeth Anderson, Kelly Dearborn, Christine Bassis, Alison Markle, Jessica Gale, Zulema Lundy, Carolyn Rodriguez, Carrie Golds, auntie Nikki, Catherine Ellingson, Kara Brugmann, Sarah H, Sarah Egan, Jess Koman. Jennifer Olson, Jennifer, HS, Eliza Gibson, Jillian Bowman, Brianne, Macy, Karen, Perelman, Katie, Jordan, Sarah, m Lisa, Travis, Kate, M, Emily, Bruer, Josie, Alquist, Tara, Todd, Elizabeth, Cleary, and Monica. Thank y'all so much.
Doree (43:07):
Thanks again to all of you. And Forever 35 is hosted and produced by me, Doree Shafrir, and Elise Hu, and produced and edited by Samee Junio. Sami Reed is our project manager, and our network partner is Acast. Thanks everyone. Until next time. Bye.