Gossip, girls, and burn books: What the hell just happened here?

It’s always strange when life starts to imitate art. 2004’s Mean Girls was no masterpiece, but it did the job of capturing just how toxic it can be to be well, a girl. All the manipulative and creative ways in which “conflicts” are addressed--the classic “he said, she said,” spilling secrets because you felt wronged, and the ultimate Regina George artifact: the burn book.

Like I said, it’s strange when something this fictional somehow makes itself known in a real, palpable way. By “real” I mean viral. By “palpable” I mean hurtful.

D List Burn Book is a fairly recent anonymous blog that targeted fashion bloggers (in true Machiavellian spirit), by posting about their families, livelihood, ex-boyfriends, and even questioning their gender preferences, presented in gay slang and MS Paint-esque infographics.

D List Burn Book wasn’t the first blogger-versus-blogger incident that got Twitter feeds buzzing and became rumor round-up material. Last year, Lexi Gancayco was the first fashion blogger to ever be implicated in a blogger “scandal.” “Lexigate,” as some have called it, had her private Facebook conversations with friends—let’s just say they didn’t sugarcoat—about bloggers go public, through a series of stolen screencaps uploaded online. But Lexi admitted it, accepted the backlash, and moved on. At the end of the day, you chalk it up to growing pains.

The online burn book combusted in a bigger way when it allegedly revealed its authors (also through screencaps), upgrading the online blaze to a forest fire. It’s what people would call here a pasabog.

I don’t bring any of this up to sensationalize and make the issue bigger than it already is. Nor do I want to be preachy, or lecture any of you on the perils of having such a public presence online. I bring this up because it is not unnatural to gossip—we all do it—maybe not in this grand scale, but we all find pleasure in nitpicking things we don’t like about a person, dragging the people involved into the fray, and maybe even digging into their backgrounds. We all do it in one form or another. But it’s all talk and harmless, until it isn’t anymore. When you mock or belittle people, and you see how it affects them in a grave way and you still can’t stop? That’s no longer natural, that’s schadenfreude.

Any dirt you have on any person is also dirt you have on your hands—roll in it long enough and you’ll find yourself in a black hole. It may not be unnatural to pursue negativity, but it’s also so, so easy. Challenge yourself. They don’t call it a high road for nothing. A character check is always a good idea—and no, I don’t mean the 140 kind.

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(Ed’s note: The author was mentioned in one entry on D List Burn Book.)