Grapevine Tabloid Journalists

March 15, 2011 by  

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When I started writing a couple of years ago my inspiration came from the issues that I had with friends that I have had and lost along the way due to things such as lack of tolerance for one another. I even wrote a piece about how, in life, you encounter individuals that are quick to point out things about you that are negative and constantly remind you as to how they tolerate your flaws because they love you withstanding the fact that you also have things about them that you have learnt to live with because you understand that as individuals we all come with flaws as well as spectacular aspects of our personalities. I also pointed out that if we observe friendships that have survived over decades we can clearly notice how the friends have learned to appreciate the positive things about each other and have ignored each others flaws. I am, however, aware of flaws that can become a toxic element of relations and those flaws are a valid reason to end a friendship as they create a breeding ground for potential resentment.

In my life, so far, I have been blessed to meet and befriend some of the most amazing individuals that love and cherish life. People who are smart , funny and driven. Sadly, the consequence of being a person like me is that you win some and lose some in huge quantities. Sometimes it is a result of major differences that render the friendship not worth the fight to keep it going and the result of that is a clean break-up that leaves both parties with no hard feelings. This morning I came to a realisation about a major reason why friends drift apart and find themselves in a place where they harbour ill-feelings for one another. This is something that is caused by people that I refer to as grapevine tabloid journalists (GTJ).

I am referring to individuals that will use somebody’s name as a source to fish out a juicy story. An example would be if your friend does something scandalous and confides in you as somebody he trusts. Over time rumours start circulating about what happened and this is the time when the GTJ would go to your friend to fish the story out disguised as a concerned friend. In order to get a confession the GTJ will use your name and tell your friend that you told him what happened meanwhile you said absolutely nothing about it.

The GTJ also tells your friend to protect his identity if he chooses confronting you. Now it all rests on the strength of the friendship to determine the outcome of this situation. Other people are made in such a manner that they avoid confrontation at all costs especially when they feel betrayed which results in you watching your friendship waste away without you knowing the reason. If your friend does choose to confront you, you cannot avoid appearing like a defensive guilty individual because of the shock and naturally you ask where they heard this from only to be met by, “it does not matter who told me, what matters is that I told you something private and you went and told other people!”

Your friend confronting you about it in such a manner leaves you feeling accused and untrusted and in most cases the conversation ends in the exchange of harsh words from both parties moving both of you from being friends to sworn enemies. If he chooses not to confront you, he suddenly becomes cold and aloof towards you until you eventually become cold and aloof towards him too after countless efforts to investigate, without much success, as to what went wrong.

All of this drama, because of an inquisitive and ruthless individual on a mission to have a confirmed juicy story to gossip about. The story moves to become a headline for a week or two until something juicier comes up but the unnecessary damage to a friendship lasts forever. People like me have found themselves victims of this kind of thing due to being outspoken individuals. Meanwhile people like me are not the ones that spread vicious rumours and gossip. I, personally, thrive on confrontations and being frank; which leaves me in a place where grapevine tabloids rarely sell.

So, if you have heard that I said something about you behind your back, come forward and bring the name of the GTJ with you.

Monsters live in the dark, confrontations and full disclosure is the light switch that has, over decades, never failed to put things into perspective.

By Mablerh ©

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Comments

40 Comments on "Grapevine Tabloid Journalists"

  1. LJFOREVER on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 12:11 am 

    OK… Yaah bro dis waar.

  2. ThatoM on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 12:19 am 

    WOW Mablerh such a deep article damn.

  3. Lela on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 1:13 am 

    The only thing that I can never tolerate in a friendship bubugqwirha,i can handle flaws but once you start showing signs of jelousy,competitive spirit, to a point of starting to be copy cat and have no shame buying exactly the same stuff as me. You can gossip about me but ndingayiva and my kids,you shit on my kids we are over. If you are disciplinarian or perfect parent leave my brats alone,don’t come to my house i won’t go to yours. That is why bonke abangane enginabo ngibabala nje kwesisandla esiyi one.

  4. ThatoM on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 1:30 am 

    Cheeeeeeesa lela u on fire shame deathby u pulling an intersexion statement on us haha *dead*
    I must say mina I have a lot of friends shame eish I just love making friends and most of them they betray me,I don’t trust all of them though.I only have one bestie that I have been friends with since pre-school.one thing I’ve learnt about friendship is,never tell any friend ur secrets uzokaka shame.a friend of mine once pulled a GTJ on me ay ngamu trapa strong yesses singafa.

  5. cebsyy on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 2:27 am 

    eish this feels like it was ritten 4 me ,i have been a victim of a GTJ twice in my life and have actually left in the circle of all this bcoz i couldn’t prove i ddnt.so i knw how it feels to b suspected 4 something u ddnt do bt ending up not even wanting 2 deny it coz u knw ngeke bakthembe no meta hw much u try

  6. lebza4sh0 on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 2:34 am 

    LOL! Thato ur so ghetto babe, wamo trapa? Hai I love u still

  7. ugogal on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 4:56 am 

    I believe that if u want to keep a secret ‘just keep it’. Once u tell the next person, it will no longer be a secret. It becomes a chain – I confide in u, u also go confide in someone else & so it goes on with the story getting distorted along the way…

  8. Kiki on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 5:30 am 

    This is deep Mablerh. Friendship is a very difficult relationship to maintain especially if you are friends with people you don’t trust. I am a very sweet person and I try to get along with a lot people BUT I am very careful who I tell my secrets to. We are surrounded by FAKE people everywhere,people who come into your life pretending to care but later on u discover they are worse than your enemy. So having a friend who pretends to care but then turns around and laugh,gossip bout u behind your back hurts. I have eliminated those element of surprises shem. I am good at making friends and also good @ dropping them like its hot. I cannot remain in a friendship with a person who would kill me given the opportunity so I walk.

    I cannot pretend to like someone. If I don’t like u believe you will know coz I won’t waste time pretending to care.
    Some friendships are bad especially when you have to care about your friend more than they care about themselves…not an easy one!

    Lela I agree with you some ‘friends’ like to compete in everything,clothes,jobs,cars and even men. I am allergic to those kind of friendships so I don’t keep them.

    One thing I have learnt is that not everyone is a friend. Just bcoz we laugh,joke n sometimes bump into each other @ Parties don’t mean we are friends. #JustSayin

  9. GA on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 6:30 am 

    Hm! Interesting.
    I have tons of friends who all mean a lot to me for whateva role they play in my life. What one cant fullfil the otha does. I find tho that i know more about them than they do about me,i hold back too much bcos growing up,life harshly taught me that pple dont care about ur issues bt theirs, so i listen more than i put myself out there….so ive neva bn on the recieving end of a TGwhatwhat friend. I actualy think bloggville via my alias knows more about Me than my many friends….yo,bt the one incident of bng gossiped about (that i heard of) last yr realy hurt yo. Bt it taught me it happens nd probably wil a lot in future so i must learn to just take it on the chin.

  10. GA on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 6:44 am 

    LOL, actualy the last time i had the gtj confrontation was wen i was in primary school. The gal accused me of gtj’ng her when she had actualy bng lying about me,my family nd our shack,hehehee…lol. Well i had mentioned to a gtj friend of ours that SHE ddnt give me my 10cents change ka lunch, perhaps ne ke kgaletse lepopotane coz it cost 10cents,lol, was that gtj’ng on my part?…lol bt we r gud friends now,she is such a free spirit i wonda if she recalls coz wen i rememba,it kinda hurts that she went in hard on my family with lies. Lol nd when i confrontd her,she told me how she knows that the staff she said about my family nd our poor state,our shack,what we ate nd ddnt eat were true…tjo my frgend mara,she was quite a mean kid hle. Bt ja, that was a nasty confrontation there in 1997

  11. Whitechick on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 7:05 am 

    My word this is too good Mableh

    Iv been a victim of fake friends a few too many times that this touched me deeply.

    However,
    i never confront coz wheneva i talk about something that has hurt me i tend to cry and well that just gets too messy, so i then do it it all via sms n tell em not to eva contact or tal to me again.

    Cryng n talking at the same time is just too much for me cz my lips will keep goin sideways as il be trng not to cry, lol n well dont even get me started on the tune of my voice,
    lol tjo hai. Kids do it all the time.

  12. Whitechick on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 7:17 am 

    Lol red pens do your thing.
    Esh

  13. princesskoena on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 7:24 am 

    wow to deep some people can write tjo *clapin hands*
    i only have one best friend shez far though but we make sure that we talk everyday.i confide in her so does she.
    My ex bf used to be my best friend also..
    I got one simple rule if you wanna enjoy life don’t tel lot of people your secrets tel one person.like julius malema said ”THERE IS NO PERMANENT FRIEND AND THERE IS NO PERMANENT ENEMY”.

  14. GA on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 7:40 am 

    LOL @whitechick, i know how sad and funny crying and confronting when u have a small voice is. I just dont anymore…i cry,gather myself and “talk it out”,lol,coz on loud fierce confrontations i sound lyk pinky wa stackvel,it just fails….lol.

  15. Mmaditaba on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 8:01 am 

    LMAO @Whitechick&GA i know exactly what yal mean! Mina ngize ngiphele ivoice!
    Then the mouth is just moving sterk nomlomo otjeke goed.

    I’ve taught myself this motto ‘LOVE THEM ALL BUT TRUST GOD ALONE’ ngoba i’ve been hurt by ‘friends’ far too many times,who go to my bfs and tell them the exact things that will cause us to break up! Manje njengoba uLela ashilo lakimi yifok fok ,like i dnt give a damn about trying to keep a veil friendship. What helps is that at large my tight friends that i confide in are GUYS ,and my closest friend is a guy! I trust him compared to the junk of GTJ iv had in primary especially, and highschool!

  16. Lela on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 8:44 am 

    @Thato phela i’m old now,i can’t just keep people for the sake of having friends,im also a very nice person and i easily get along with people but if you are fake u are out,id rather have one real friend. Futhi nami im avoiding ending up traping someone cause ukholwa kona ngiyakholwa kodwa amasimba nje angizwani nawo.

  17. lazyswag on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 9:12 am 

    that’s some deep ish right there and i couldn’t agree with you more..

  18. Soulchild on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 9:21 am 

    Eish mina nje I’ve learnet to keep to myself….I choose what I tell my friends. I used to confide in my cousin and I regarded her as my best friend until i found out that she has been telling my then boyfriend almost everything I told her. I was so devasted coz i regarded her as a friend. We still not talking now. the worst part is when I confronted her she denied ever telling him but I know that I only told her. So from now on I keep to myself.

  19. mamamia on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 10:04 am 

    Interesting article, deep too.
    I think the idea is if they can’t keep your secret and prefer to gossip and make you a headliner for whatever reason in your circle then they not a friend but an acquintance. I have friends/acquaintances for a lot of different reasons. I have friends for fun, friends who chow my paycheck during the good times and i’m too tipsy and happy to care, friends I go to for advice preferable good advice and friends I can share a secret with and know they won’t throw me under the bus and if their gossiping about me, then it’s probably to people i don’t know intimately. I try to spread myself and not take things too personally.

  20. ThatoM on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 10:05 am 

    Hi5 to kiki’s last paragraph yoh….guys I’m really learning a lot from this article nd your comments wow khulumani ng’lalele

  21. Mabhebeza on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 10:44 am 

    Wow Mablerh … nice read indeed :)

  22. SilentBloggar on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 10:50 am 

    Off Topic guys: JC just made it to a Port Elizabeth newspaper called ‘The Herald’. It’s an article on Page 3 about the Crous vs True Love editor story. The writer mentions that ‘celebrity gossip site Just Curious posted seven tweets allegedly by Crous, some of which are too rude to be reprinted. Sorry Mablerh I just had to share.

  23. KevCare on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 10:52 am 

    I COULDN’T AGREE MORE!!!! “I try to get along with a lot people BUT I am very careful who I tell my secrets to. We are surrounded by FAKE people everywhere,people who come into your life pretending to care but later on u discover they are worse than your enemy. So having a friend who pretends to care but then turns around and laugh,gossip bout u behind your back hurts.”
    #NuffSed

  24. ThatoM on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 11:00 am 

    @silentBlogger so what’s gonna happen now? Are they suing JC?

  25. sexybehind on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 11:12 am 

    I’ve had a friend neh, whenever I shared secrets with that person, they went and told other people. When I asked why, I was told that they needed a second opinion, With My secrets nogal. That devasted me in a horrid way and I got to see exactly the type of the person was. That hurt, I wasn’t cool because I never told anyone about their secrets. So you know what, I got resentful and started hating this person so much that I decided to quit the so called friendship. It wasn’t a frienship, it was a sabotage. You cannot confide in someone, then they ask people about opinions on your Secrets nogal ai sies! That person must go die, and I will never EVER go back there and I will passby that person on the streets as if I didn’t know them, and if the person’s feeling is mutual about me and our terrible friendship, I couldn’t care less. Actually I don’t give a shit. A tsamae, ha a tshepahale. Sies. Batho ba rata ho etsa bochomi ka mabitso a rona forgetting gore even le bona they have dirt and aren’t perfect. If I were a horrible person I would go around telling people about di story tsa hae le yena. Nx! *wipes off sweat on forehead* aaiiee Tau, GO!

  26. Lela on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 11:12 am 

    Hayibo Thato,she is just sharing that we made it to The Herald because they quoted an article that was here unlike some publications who just run our story without credting us. Thanks Silent Blogger I know Herald.

  27. SilentBloggar on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 11:18 am 

    @ThatoM no they aren’t suing JC the reporter from the Herald say Crous I’d denying all the other tweets, he says he only tweeted once where he called the TL editor an ugly b******.

  28. mamamia on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 11:32 am 

    But we all saw the tweets, if Oom Crous is denying then who tweeted the rest……………. #intrigued#

  29. ThatoM on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 11:33 am 

    @Lela askies man I was a bit confused there…

  30. Mmaditaba on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 12:23 pm 

    ThatoM did u drink your medication today? Lol they not suing us bt rather crediting us dear sugaplum..

  31. coca-cola on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 1:06 pm 

    hmmmmm mina i have few friends lately and im so happy but still,the few friends i have they know so little about me and i prefer it that way

    one thing i have realised is we all have groups of friends e.g friends u call when u wana party(n usualy these are friends who are nower to be found when you have hit rock bottom), then theres friends you call when you need a shoulder to cry on(which i dont do,i lock myself up and cry a river then i feel way better), then theres friends whom you call when you want umogozi coz they know everything about everyone.

    i also dont understand gals who shares everything that happens in their relationships with their friends,but then again its comes down to the level of respect you have for your relationship..like realy why shud your friends know everthing.

  32. coca-cola on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 1:09 pm 

    some friend end up knowing ur man in and out coz of all the details u share with them

  33. MissAN on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 1:34 pm 

    If there is one thing I have been always good at and blessed with… Good friends…I stay away from bo Miss Popular…I prefer hanging around like minded people,that are smart,can laugh at themselves and are just easy going…. Fake friendships are not my forte…

  34. ThatoM on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 1:34 pm 

    Lol @Mmaditaba *side eye*

  35. SilentBloggar on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 2:01 pm 

    Friendships are over complicated by people in them. Keep things simple and not rely 200% on external advice and don’t put too much importance on friends.

  36. Beautybaby on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 6:05 pm 

    Dear friend, u always been a toxic friend and I don’t know how we tolerated ur bulls* all of 10 yrs. U think u beta than all, oh plueeees, u think u IT and a piece of mohodu. Thank Lord u out of my life, stay out, leaving u hs been the best decision of my life.

  37. NQOBILENNN on Wed, 16th Mar 2011 9:00 pm 

    I only have 3 friends besides my boyfie, they are my sista, my bestie from childhood ose jozi and my varsity friend. neva been betrayed by any of them and i luv these gals to death cos we are fircely loyal to each other, no competition between us only positive energy. choose your friends wisely people!

  38. Biskiti on Thu, 17th Mar 2011 10:33 am 

    WOw, brilliant article MaBlehr!

    Tjo, Some friends will show you a couple of ghosts! Nami, i’ve learned to keep most things to myself after being bitten plenty of times.

    I also had a good friend that i “sang to” and yena his life was never eventful, or so i thought, until i found out guthi he’s dated one of my close friends for 2 years, fakhen 2 years behind everyone’s backs…lol. and was telling my friend all of my stories, shuuu, i dzied and was cremated. I mean this person had the New King James Version of my life story. Now, i just keep it all INSIDE, as per Monica!

  39. Biskiti on Thu, 17th Mar 2011 10:44 am 

    I’m also a friendly person, and make friends easily, so i tend to have plenty of different circles of friends. I almost fell into the trap of “verifying” issues from once circle to another, until one of my friends joined the dots after two of my circles became one. After that i realised that the world is very small, what you say about people tends to come back to those people.

    Another golden rule is that what you say about people behind their backs you should be able to say it to their faces too!

  40. mbulela on Thu, 17th Mar 2011 11:48 pm 

    A secret is that which is only known by one.

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