You Didn't Hear This From Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip by Kelsey McKinney: nonfiction review

You Didn't Hear This From Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip
by Kelsey McKinney (Out February 11)

Thank you to Grand Central Publishing for sending me an advanced copy for review purposes. All opinions are my own. 

Overview: Kelsey McKinney takes a deep dive into gossip through a series of essays in a spinoff of her podcast, Normal Gossip. On the podcast, McKinney and her co-host delve into stories from strangers, perfect bits of juicy gossip, and in this series of essay, McKinney breaks down different types of gossip and gossip adjacent constructs (urban legends, parasocialism, conspiracy theories, anonymous gossip, why Chat GPT can't gossip, etc) in well researched, thoughtful essays that infuse her personal experiences as a lifelong gossip and internet resident with scientific literature, literature-literature, and pieces of the art world. Overall: 4.5

Notes: I'm going to be totally honest and say that while this was an early "most anticipated" of 2025 for me, I had no clue that Kelsey McKinney had a podcast. I was scrolling through Twitter last year, saw one of her tweets either announcing or promoting preorders or something like that and thought, "A book about gossip? Yes please." So I went to NetGalley and long story short, I've now read the book. While McKinney's podcast does lend some anecdotes to the book, what better facilitates these essays is that McKinney is extremely well versed in pop culture, the internet, and literature. She pulls together a truly interesting and diverse pool of sources that she uses to make her points from novels to memoirs to scientific studies to examples pulled from movies. Having such a gem-filled treasure chest of a library of knowledge to work with makes the essays feel more unique, surprising, and delightful than they might have been from someone whose work was singularly focused on the more scientific angle. 

These books about big topics usually go one of two ways. They either try to put the story of the topic in some narrative stricture, create a sequential order of things, or they jump right into essays that allow the author to delve into the most interesting sub-segments in more depth. This book goes for the essay style which makes it easy to digest and pick up for an essay or two at a time. It's very approachable, and McKinney does a great job of creating a conversational tone that still feels rich and thoughtful. The book actually made me want to listen to the podcast. While I didn't learn a ton I didn't already know (I wasn't expecting to, I love this topic and those adjacent to it and have done a lot of reading on the subjects), it felt like getting to discuss the subjects of the essay with a very thoughtful, intelligent friend, which is always exciting. 

I think the book truly had me hooked when McKinney mentioned her attendance at the famous Lorde concert where Jack Antonoff came out and performed, stoking already ardent rumors that they were having an affair. While she didn't mention the truly wild powerpoint outlining why one fan thought this was true (she took the story in a different direction), that was the moment where I felt like this book was truly on my wavelength. 

The first essay opens with McKinney outlining what gossip is and how it fits within the larger lineage of storytelling by detailing her failed experiment to try to get Chat GPT to gossip with her. While I loathe any use of the pathetic chat robot, I thought that she made fantastic points that illuminated why Chat GPT is horrible at writing, be it stories or essays. She makes a fantastic argument against the chatbots that everyone should have to read. The next essay discusses the relationship between religion and gossip and the harms that come from gossip being cast as never acceptable. This is largely through the lens of her experience growing up in a megachurch, though the essay does ultimately reach beyond that. 

The next series of essays center around popular media. She uses Mean Girls and the differences between the book, the original movie, and the remake to talk about protective gossip and the way that (largely women) use gossip to protect themselves and others from dangerous people. The essay on anonymous gossip might be my favorite as it pulls together so many cultural touchpoints. It centrally revolves around Gossip Girl and why the original show worked when the remake didn't, but within that, she discusses Refinery 29's Money Diaries series, Elena Ferrante's anonymity (which I didn't realize she used a pen name!), and, of course, Deuxmoi and blind items. This weaves together in such a satisfying way, and as someone who's not above glancing through subreddits gossiping about influencers and celebrities, this was a lot of fun. 

Other essays in the collection tackle topics like parasocial relationships and the ways that fans will both start and ignore rumors to protect their conception of the celebrity they think they know. It was a take on the topic that I hadn't seen articulated before. This is where the Lorde story I mentioned earlier comes in. Doxxing comes up and, of course, West Elm Caleb, and makes a point about how the ways we use social media only helps the creation of a surveillance state. Reality TV can't be left out as its a format entirely powered by gossip. Urban legends and their more sinister sibling, conspiracy theories comes up. I was a bit disappointed to see that my two favorite urban legends born of celebrity gossip (that Paul Mescal ends hook ups by taking his date to the park, pointing out a bird, and then hightailing it away the next morning and that Timothy Chalamet gave everyone at NYU chlamydia) do not make an appearance. Finally, McKinney chronicles how gossip often becomes compressed into history if it's about the right people at the right time and pays homage to the glories of eavesdropping. 

Clearly, this book had me hooked, and it does a great job of exploring the topic in a fresh way with great modern, topical references. Even if you think you don't care about gossip, this is a great book for anyone who loves the internet (or loved what it was until recently). I highly recommend this to fans of Amanda Montell's books as well. 

More on Reading, Writing, and Me:

January Wrap Up

Weather review

Backlist Books I Want to Read

Marlena review

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