But the gossiping that the teens are doing is more than immature hate; it’s part of how they build their communities. The technical term for this is social sanctioning. When we gossip about how someone is wearing the wrong thing, or dating the wrong person, or sitting at the wrong lunch table, we are communicating to the people around us that we don’t approve of those behaviors. We are teaching our peer group how we want to behave and how we want them to behave. If the popular girls carry Stanley cups, you will, too.
