Explanation for the Gossip Obsession

I have learned some very interesting things from watching Oprah this week. (By the way, she hugs EVERYBODY on that show now. I think she must have seen the jokes about the "Oprah hug" on Will & Grace and decided it was bad for her image to keep everyone at arms length. But she looks like she is in pain while she's hugging it out. It's hilarious.) Anyway, what I learned today I found quite comforting.

Apparently, there is a very reasonable explanation for my celebrity gossip penchant. Evidently, it's a brain thing. According to Carlin Flora, a journalist for "Psychology Today," there is an evolutionary developmental root to the obsession. Our brains are hard-wired to recognize members of our own tribe. If we recognize a person, we think we know them. So our brains are built to think we are acquaintances with those celebs and it makes us interested in what's going on with them and their lives.

This all makes total sense to me now. A week after I have my brain massaged for four or five hours, I suddenly start blogging about celeb gossip. I was concerned until I saw Oprah's show. God bless Oprah for shedding light on the celeb-gossip brain phenomenon. By the way, I feel like I know her.