05.03.08 The 6th Sign of a Negative-Gossip Conversation

6. Hypocritical Talk

Hypocritical talk about other people is classified as ‘negative gossip’.

Reading the story of Nehemiah, you learn that hypocritical gossip was the mainstay of some haters and naysayers. Apparently, their negative rumours did not stop with the completion of the wall-rebuilding project. But rather, as you may have seen in the ‘feature-stories’ section of this book, letters would be ferried between Tobiah and the nobles of Judah since he was their in-law. The people were such hypocrites to the extent that while they were telling Nehemiah how good Tobiah was, the same hypocritical Tobiah was concurrently sending intimidating letters to Nehemiah (Nehemiah 6:17-19).

One common sign of hypocrisy-loaded gossip is where the monger abruptly stops talking or stealthily changes the topic as soon as the victim appears on the scene. To sum it up, the gossiper cannot continue with the conversation when the victim of the gossip is within earshot. We see such hypocritical chatters at JuaLink. For instance, when Faraja unexpectedly entered the office where Lulu was updating Obed about the publicity manager’s barrenness; the publicity officer shamelessly changed the topic to something completely different.

Another example was where the hypocritical Lulu enticed Neema and Faraja to participate in a negative conversation against Edisa Kitchens, just so that the publicity officer could record the two women without their knowledge, then ferry their comments to Obed the human resource officer.

Therefore, if the gossiper shifts the discussion to something else the minute the victim (or those who know the victim) shows up; and if what she or he was sharing is negative, that is a clear sign of a negative-gossip conversation. The ‘litmus paper test’ is to check whether the person would freely repeat those words in the presence of that victim.