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KELSEY MCKINNEY: “What’s up, Chicago? Hi. Welcome to the You Didn’t Hear This From Me book tour.”
Chicago Humanities has officially kicked off their 2025 Spring Festival. In one of their first events, author, journalist and podcaster Kelsey Mckinney was on stage Saturday night to talk about society’s obsession with gossip. In her newest book, You Didn’t Hear This From Me, she writes about the art of eavesdropping, everyday storytelling and why we care so much about gossip
McKinney rose to fame with her hit 2021 podcast Normal Gossip. Recently, she has passed the baton of hosting duties, but as she did in every episode, over the weekend, McKinney told a gossip story to the audience.
MCKINNEY: “We are going to talk about the book, I promise. But I thought maybe before we started, you might want to hear a little gossip. Alright, our friend of a friend today, we’re gonna call her Rebbeca.”
Dividing the story throughout the evening was gossip from the audience and a conversation with Chicago-based pop culture commentator and author, Kate Kennedy.
McKinney and Kennedy talked about their evangelical upbringings, society’s relationship with celebrities, pop culture tourism, urban legends and how McKinney launched the podcast.
MCKINNEY: “I made my career about gossip by accident. In that, I did a tweet in 2020 that was like someone should give a podcast called Normal Gossip where I find out what’s happening at the Gap. This Tweet went very viral and I co-own a cooperatively owned media company and so all of my coworkers were like “what is wrong with you, why would you tweet such a good idea, when we could simply make it?”
For McKinney, while gossiping might not always show our best moments, it’s often used as a tool to manage different aspects of life, like friendship.
MCKINNEY: “I think all the time about if somebody videotaped that and put that on the internet, it makes you look like the worst friend in the world. And maybe you are. But, in most cases it’s just somebody trying to get out a frustration so they can be a good friend in person.”
Event goers like Madison Dykines, are happy that the idea made it out of Twitter, now known as X. She loves the podcast and picked up a copy of the book at the event.
MADISON DYKINES: “I’m excited to hear more about the validation of gossip and how important it is to human connection and how gossip serves our protection and balance and that need for information sharing in a really, kind of beautiful, but stigmatized way.”
But here’s one thing McKinny wants everyone to take away from the show.
MCKINNEY: “Please remember you did not hear this from me.”
Chicago Humanities has events going through May. All of their programming aims to connect ideas and people while fostering curiosity and creativity.
For WNUR News, I’m Naya Reyes.
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