Gossip Boi: Festive Shunning

The last in the second series of Gossip Boi was a Christmas Special. Here ATV Today looks back at the article first published on December 18th 2008. Gossip Boi ran for three seasons on ATV Today from 2007 to 2009. We’ve left several online for posterity.

In the final edition of his current, second, season our London based Columnist, Gossip Boy, reports all the scandal and gossip from the Streets of London. But the wicked of London shouldn’t lower their guard because he’ll be back for a New Year special edition and a new season next year.

Remember Joel? The fresh meat of London. The pack’s favourite new toy. If you you’re probably the only one. No one else remembers Joel. As Gossip Boi predicted he’s now old news to the gay clique of Soho, they’ve moved onto someone else and poor old Joel has been left behind wondering where it all went wrong. Maybe someone should tell him what a cruel, cruel world it is and how fickle gay society can be.

There’s nothing like Christmas and Christmas Parties and Christmas Cards to bring out the old rivalries amongst friends and bring out old foes. The smallest thing could be seen as a snub, a late Christmas Card seen as an insult and a lack of invite to a party seen as a declaration of war. The wrong Christmas present seen as a deliberate mistake. Take Kai for instance, fictional name of course, he forgot to send invites to his Christmas party and so those he forgot took it as a snub and decided to gate-crash his party. At first Kai was pleased to see them but once they began to “accidentally” reveal his misdeeds over the past year, in front of his boyfriend, he wasn’t so pleased. Kai and these friends are now at war as they try to out “reveal” each other. Who has the most lose, who has the most secrets in the closet remains to be seen.

Gossip Boi snubbed the office Christmas Party this year and it was very much a deliberate snub and this was noted. Does Gossip Boi care, not in the least. After all he wasn’t the one drunk on the dance-floor dancing with the only other people disliked by everyone else at work while everyone took photos on their phone, for blackmail purposes. Nor was Gossip Boi the person who was accused by his friends of changing for the worst since falling in with the wrong crowd. Gossip Boi is too quiet for anyone to pay much attention to so we doubt anyone would notice any change in us at all. So while Gossip Boi snubbed the party he still got to hear all the juicy gossip the next day at work and saw all the juicy photos and he didn’t have any of the pain associated with attending such an event. No hangover, no embarrassment, no dodgy dances on the dance-floor and no attempts at flirting with anyone just the good side of the party, the gossip.

Christmas is meant to be the time of good will to all men but really, it’s anything but. Goodwill is all well and said but human nature just doesn’t work along such lines. We love gossip, we love scandal and we love to bitch and backstab and plot and speculate and spread rumours and make dam sure that the people we don’t like get lots of shit said about them. Christmas Parties offer us the opportunity to exploit the weak through their own actions and get all the gossip we could possibly want. So if you’ve got a party to attend to for Christmas, be careful. You never know what gossip will come out of it.

Love and Kisses,

Gossip Boi