Gossip magazines, which featured scandalous gossip about the personal lives of celebrities, were at their peak in the 1950s. The title Confidential alone boasted a monthly circulation in excess of ten million, and it had many competitors, with names like "Whisper," "Dare," "Suppressed" and "Uncensored." These magazines included more lurid and explicit content than did the popular newspaper gossip columnists of the time, including tales of celebrity homosexuality and illegal drug use. // Events and trends This map shows two essential global spheres during the Cold War in 1959. ... A gossip columnist is someone who writes a gossip column in a newspaper or magazine, especially a gossip magazine, that prints gossip stories, spreading news of a personal, private nature, and/or rumors and lies, usually about show business, the motion picture and television industries, celebrities, movie stars, superstars, people...
The large-circulation gossip magazines eventually gave way to supermarket tabloids, such as the National Enquirer , and to less scandal-oriented celebrity coverage in magazines like People and Us, though small-circulation publications that harken back to the '50s approach have continued to be published. The history of gossip magazines also includes a few eccentric titles that flaunted the usual rules of acceptable taste, such as the sexually explicit Hollywood Star of the 1970s. The National Enquirer is a national American supermarket tabloid. ... Us is a weekly American magazine dedicated to celebrities. ...
This was possibly the first time a gossipmagazine 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.
The large-circulation gossipmagazines eventually gave way to supermarket tabloids, such as the National Enquirer, and to less scandal-oriented celebrity coverage in magazines like People and Us, though small-circulation publications that harken back to the '50s approach have continued to be published.
The history of gossipmagazines also includes a few eccentric titles that flaunted the usual rules of acceptable taste, such as the sexually explicit Hollywood Star of the 1970s.
While gossip forms one of the oldest and (still) the most common means of spreading and sharing facts and views, it also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and other variations into the information thus transmitted.
Gossip has recently come into the academy as a fruitful avenue of study, particularly in light of its relationship to both overt and implicit power structures.
The word "gossip" originates from god-sib, the godparent of one's child or parent of one's godchildren ("god-sibling"; compare the possible cognate of sib: sabhā), referring to a relationship of close friendship.