Gossip in the City

By Parrys Hampton

What’s hott and what’s not is relatively easy to exaggerate within the gossipy city of Providence, at least within its substantial LGBTQ community. It seems as if everyone has something to say about someone else these days -- from rumors of Providence clubs serving cheap liquor, to which shot-boy was featured in a porno, and even catty bar fights --all are reiterated word-for-word and swing-by-swing for those who may have missed out on them. It seems as if “Gay Providence” is frenzied with online blogging, and it is quickly becoming the hottest trend within this crazed city of critical drama-queens. Within a matter of months, Providence altered itself from a metropolis notorious for its flamboyant nightlife into a networking conurbation brimming with socializing spies who record your every drunken, sloppy notion and disparage it on their virtual diaries, all accessible on the World Wide Web. Has Providence been reduced to the concept that going out “clubbing” has been metamorphosed into going out “slandering?” It has come to the point that people are now terrified that these online bullies might defame their character and name.

But who exactly should be to blame here? Those who do the bully-blogging or those who do the reading? I have been the subject of Providence’s minority blog-sites myself, both disapprovingly and positively. I personally view it as press, a form of media that places my name and talents as a female impersonator onto the computer screens of those who know me from the numerous downtown clubs, restaurants and lounges. Others, however, don’t view it as impartial media hype, convinced that it is more like heinous public notoriety. So what is the politically correct approach here? Are blog-rings concerning the Providence LGBT community just examples of arrogant, juvenile child-like play; or should we appreciate that “all is fair game” within the premise that “all press is good press?”

Honestly, both perceptions could be accurate; it’s all in how you choose to let it affect you. What pushes the envelope into allowing this matter to get downright nasty is when this press or mockery (however you decide to perceive it) becomes hurtful and malicious. These handfuls of blog-groups are using mediocre endeavors -- and second-rate writing -- to slur those who they see as intimidating figures within Providence’s gay night scene, and we, as readers, are like cattle to the slaughterhouse. When it comes to gossip why is it that we are drawn to it like flies to crap as long as i tdoesn’t pertain to us individually? Is scandal and slander only wrong when it’s done to you personally?

Maybe we should realize that gossip has power only when there are those who listen and fuel its malicious intentions. Providence, do we really want to reduce ourselves to logging onto a bitching-about-something.com, increasing their site viewings so we can receive the latest breaking news of who lost their wig on the boat cruise or who got banned from that downtown nightclub? How pathetically lame could our own lives be if all we care to involve our intellect with is meaningless smearing over the Internet… I think its time to ask ourselves what ever happened to going out with friends toc elebrate, drink, dance, relieve stress and just let loose? Currently, doing all of this results in waking up with a hangover, and then discovering that your foolish antics from the night prior are the focus point of everyone’s online chitchatting. Keep it HOTT Providence,



xoxo Parrys Hampton.