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Gossip Evolution: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"He'd staggered in, covered in blood and mud, carrying a crossbow and, d'you know, when they went back to look there were seven dead men. By the time that sort of story had gone ten miles he'd be carrying an axe as well, and make that thirty dead men and a dog."''|''[[
▲{{quote|''"He'd staggered in, covered in blood and mud, carrying a crossbow and, d'you know, when they went back to look there were seven dead men. By the time that sort of story had gone ten miles he'd be carrying an axe as well, and make that thirty dead men and a dog."''|''[[Discworld/The Fifth Elephant|The Fifth Elephant]]''}}
Whenever tales are spread mouth to mouth, particularly among [[Gossipy Hens]], every speaker adds something of their own, going as far as changing a bar brawl into raging war between four largest nations of whichever world the story is placed into.
This trope is mainly about the process, but also describes the outcome, even if the process wasn't shown on screen. [[Shrouded in Myth]] is the outcome when this is used to exaggerate a character's [[Badass
The process is similar to a children's game, which goes by many names, such as Broken Telephone, Silent Post, Chinese Whispers and many more. In this game, one person in a line whispers a sentence into the next person's ear, and by the end of the line, the sentence has evolved into something unrecognizable, and probably lewd, too. When [[Played for Laughs]], the line will typically be incredibly small, such as around five people, while the final rumor will have nothing in common with the original.
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{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* This is part of Shonen Bat's M.O. in ''[[Paranoia Agent]]'' -- {{spoiler|as stories of him spread and mutate, he becomes more firmly entrenched in Tokyo's collective consciousness, making him all the more dangerous.}}
* ''[[Rurouni Kenshin]]'': Kenshin Himura, better known as Hitokiri Battousai, actually is a fearsomely skilled as all the stories say. However, people look at the body count he's racked up and assume he must be this huge, intimidating, bloodthirsty hulk of a man, [[Shrouded in Myth|when he's actually a short, skinny
* An early chapter in ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' had an overheard conversation regarding [[Battle Couple|Negi finding a Partner]] quickly evolve into a rumor about Negi being a visiting prince! {{spoiler|More than 200 chapters later, this turned out to be [[Foreshadowing]]}}.
* A ''[[Mobile Fighter G Gundam]]'' audio play features a scene where the [[Five-Man Band]] and [[The Dragon]] engage in the standard shouting match...except that the latter is standing on Tokyo Tower's observation deck while the former is at the tower's base. Because of this, the banter quickly degrades into confusion.
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'''Movie!Master:''' What?! Did you say "crazy balding shitty old man"?! }}
* When Mitsuhide of ''[[Sengoku Otome]]'' wants to help [[Hot Amazon|Nobunaga's]] reputation she sends her subordinates to spread rumors about how benevolent and kind she is, especially to children, and that these are her words. Now people are telling each other about how they must bring her the children to [[Eats Babies|eat]]. The only thing that goes unchanged is that Mitsuhide is the one who started it.
== Fairy Tales ==
* ''The Bravest Little Tailor'''s misadventures started when he bragged about killing seven flies with one swipe, but the time the King hears about it, it becomes "Killing Seven Giants in One Stroke". In many versions, including the Disney version starring [[Mickey Mouse]] as the tailor, the tailor fails to specify exactly what it was he killed, proclaiming only that he killed seven at one blow. Thus does his trouble start when someone intent on telling the king about this feat barges in while the king is lamenting at the giant problem they're having right now.
== Film ==
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{{quote|'''Olive:''' I worry about the way information circulates at this school.}}
* This is central to the plot of ''[[Gossip]]''... [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|unsurprisingly]]. In fact it deconstructs the potential damage it can cause.
== Literature ==
* In the ''[[Discworld]]'' book ''[[
* In [[Hans Christian Andersen]]'s fairy tale "It's Perfectly True!", some literal [[Gossipy Hens]] pass around what becomes the story of five hens plucking all their feathers off and dying for the love of a rooster, though it started with nothing more than one hen removing just one feather.
* This happens with [[The Gunslinger|Matthew Stark]] in ''[[Cloud of Sparrows]]''. He kills a number of men, and is witnessed a few times. Stories grow in the telling, so that it gets to the point where people think Matthew Stark is eight feet tall with a scar across one eye, never eats and only drinks whiskey, prefers beating women to shagging them, and only shags them when he's beaten them to within an inch of their lives. In fact, the real Stark is able to move around unnoticed simply by calling himself Matthews.
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* The children's book ''Hen Hears Gossip'' involves this, with Hen, who started the gossip by repeating what she "overheard," finding the message has turned into a slight against herself. Unlike in most stories, the characters follow the gossip train back to each source until they discover what the original message was.
* [[J. R. R. Tolkien|JRR Tolkien]]'s ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' features various examples, notably the gossip that spreads in the city Minas Tirith about the various going-ons and visiting protagonists.
* Both the tree people and cave dwellers in the [[Green-Sky Trilogy]] are inclined to this. With no written media to speak of, nearly all communication is by word of mouth. Raamo knows himself to be a plain person, who with his friends makes some unusual
== Live Action TV ==
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* Played straight and then subverted on ''[[3rd Rock from the Sun]]''. Watch [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20Y522AifRs&t=2m18s here].
* On one episode of [[The Mentalist]], Jane exploits this effect to flush out a suspect. Since everyone at a party knows he's working with the police, he drops a few cryptic but dark hints about an authority figure's relationship to the deceased. By the time the story gets around to him again, the authority figure has become a girlfriend-beating date-raping sexual harasser. Based on the rumors, the suspect confronted the authority figure, in the sense of physically attacking him until restrained by the police. {{spoiler|Alas, she wasn't the killer.}}
== Newspaper Comics ==
* One ''[[Bloom County]]'' strip (the one done in a vastly different art style) starts with Milo telling Binkley that Opus has tickets to ''[[Cats]]''. The only thing subsequent retellings have in common is vaguely rhyming words ("Opus tickled by rats"; "Opus picked; too fat").
== Radio ==
* In ''Open Letter on Race Hatred'', a [[Dramatization]] of the 1943 Detroit race riot, the news of a fight on Belle Isle Bridge becomes increasingly garbled as rumors spread, "one for black ears--one for white ears."
== Theatre ==
* In "The Rumor" from ''[[Fiddler
{{quote|'''Yente''': And that's what comes of men and women dancing!}}
* In the musical ''Thirteen'', the song "It Can't Be True" revolves around Lucy the [[Alpha Bitch]] spreading a rumor that [[The Brainless Beauty]], Kendra, is cheating on her boyfriend with new kid Evan. Every time the rumor passes to a new person, Kendra and Evan are rumored to have gone a little farther around the bases
* ''Woe from Wit'': A major plot point in the classic Russian play, where the protagonist's eccentricity and nonconformism is quickly exaggerated by gossip to ridiculous extremes. Chatsky is reputed to have joined a Freemason club, drunk champagne by the bucketful, and generally gone irreparably insane, with more and more incredible details being "discovered" every minute.
* The plot of the play ''Spreading the News.''
== Video Game ==
* In ''[[Baldur's Gate]]'', after clearing the mines random [[NPC
* Varric of ''[[Dragon Age II|Dragon Age 2]]'' intentionally twists your story around, whether he's your best friend or your worst enemy. Eventually, you might hear that you managed to slay a High Dragon with a wooden spoon, while naked. It's hard to tell how much, if any of it, was exagerrated in ''re''-tellings, though.
* ''[[Girl Genius]]'' does this often. Most notably in the aptly named chapter [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070226 "Rumor Mill"].
* [http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1851#comic This] [[Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]] comic shows how we got from 'love and tolerance' to 'god hates fags'.
== Web Original ==
* ''[[Homestar Runner]]'': One of Strong Badia's national symbols, the Bear Holding a Shark, was created when two of the constellations of the Strong Badian zodiac, a fish and a long distance runner, teamed up to beat up all the other constellations. It became the Bear-Plus-Shark we know today through many re-tellings and the telephone game.▼
== Western Animation ==
* The titular character from ''[[Doug]]'' has a rumor that goes from Vice Principal Bone putting out a "supernova" cherry bomb science project... to Doug's science project (a model of a volcano) blowing up the entire science lab. Doug even thinks he's going to go to jail for it.
* In ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'', two feuding tribes each think that their ancestor was betrayed by the others' a hundred years ago. Aang, who was alive at this time, tells them it was just a game they were playing, and actually the ancestors were good friends despite their differences. This allows the two tribes to reconcile and continue their journey together. {{spoiler|This turns out to be an [[Invoked Trope]], as Aang made up the story entirely, believing that they would think
* ''[[Garfield and Friends|US Acres]]'' has Sheldon telling Booker about a scary story he heard from Orson, and this eventually turns into a rumor about a monster loose on the farm, which leads to Orson changing to his "Power Pig" alter-ego and attacking a scarecrow.
* In ''[[The Simpsons]]'' episode ''Grade School Confidential'' Principal Skinner and Mrs Krabappel are caught kissing in a closet. The event undergoes a
{{quote|'''Milhouse Van Houten''': ...and then Bart opened the door and Principal Skinner and Mrs. Krabappel were kissing -- and swearing!
'''Pahusacheta Nahasapeemapetilon''': Father! Uncle Apu! A teacher was in the closet with the principal and he had as many arms as Vishnu and they were all very busy.
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* Done in ''[[King of the Hill]]'''s pilot episode which leads to the plot. A couple of women spot Hank's anger with Buckley and his son with a black eye (caused by a swung baseball) at the Mega-Lo-Mart. The gossip is spread to other women thinking he's an abusive father and assaults clerks and inform child protective services.
* On ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'', Lucius asks for Jimmy and Beezy to come to his office. This message gets passed onto several Misery Inc. workers before reaching Beezy, who tells Jimmy "Smell cheesy and bum to my crawfish". After a moment of confusion, [[Subverted Trope|it turns out that Beezy made that from scratch, then repeats the message perfectly]].
▲== Web Original ==
▲* ''[[Homestar Runner]]'': One of Strong Badia's national symbols, the Bear Holding a Shark, was created when two of the constellations of the Strong Badian zodiac, a fish and a long distance runner, teamed up to beat up all the other constellations. It became the Bear-Plus-Shark we know today through many re-tellings and the telephone game.
== [[Real Life]] ==
* This trope is instrumental in the creation of [[Urban Legend
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Narrative Devices]]
[[Category:Fame and Reputation Tropes]]
[[Category:Truth in Television]]
▲[[Category:Gossip Evolution]]
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