The Arcata High halls are a gossip hotspot. Stories are strung together by everyone who passes them along until they’ve become a rumor so juicy that it drips from your lips with every word. How can you not share something so compelling?
Many have no problem passing on a rumor they’ve heard from someone else. “I guess you don’t picture anyone inventing stories,” an anonymous junior said. “But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.”
Some rumors are playful, like a joke between friends. “I have no idea where it came from, people just say that I’m a furry,” an anonymous sophomore said. “It doesn’t really affect me.”
But you have to remember how rumors can build on themselves, like a school-wide game of telephone.
A senior, who we will call Jennifer, recalls the time that she was joking about her crush but was overheard by one of his friends.
“He [told] the whole football team that I was obsessed with him,” Jennifer said. “I said it as a joke, but they didn’t take it that way.”
This story grew into something new entirely. “It felt like the whole school was against me that year,” Jennifer said. “I had soda cans thrown at me, I got gun threats. There was a lot of violence.”
What may be a funny story to you could alter somebody’s entire life or sense of safety. We often base our self-worth on how others perceive us, and it can be terrifying to know that people are spreading stories about us.
A senior who we will call Ted found himself at the center of an intense rumor during his freshman year. “I was going to the bathroom and these girls I vaguely knew were waiting outside,” Ted said. “And when I came out they were like ‘Are you doing heroin?’ and I was extremely confused and shocked.”
This rumor followed him around for a few weeks, with several others bringing it up. This was concerning to Ted.
“People have very limited ideas of what drug addicts can be and I didn’t want them to put that onto me,” he said. “I also worried that if any other rumors got spread about me, people would be more inclined to believe them.”
Remember, we don’t always know those on campus as well as we think we do. Hearing something doesn’t mean it’s true, and we have to evaluate the impact that these rumors could have on people.
