If you can’t something nice, you shouldn’t say anything at all…

Yes, we all know that gossip is bad. We know it hurts people. We know we shouldn’t do it, but sometimes gossip is too delicious to ignore. And I have to admit, this summer, I’ve become completely addicted to celebrity gossip. I can’t help myself. It’s been a great summer for celebrity gossip. Katie dumped Tom. Taylor Swift summered with the Kennedys (and dated a minor!), and Kristen Stewart broke the hearts of millions of Twihards (and her boyfriend).

Before you read any further, I have to come clean (about a lot of things). First off, while I’m not a Twihard, I did read all the books and enjoyed them quite a lot (well, at least the first three, but that’s a post for another day … probably some day in 2009). I’ve seen all the movies. I even saw the last on opening day. So, to my great embarrassment, I have to admit: I’m a fan of Twilight. Whew, with that off my chest, I can move on to other admissions. Namely this: I actually cared when Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattison got together. Not passionately or anything, but I was curious about it. I wanted them to be in love.

And I cared a lot more when they broke up. (Robyn can verify this.) I was delighted by Kristen’s bad behavior and poor decision-making. She got caught with her married lover! In a car! No celebrity has crashed and burned so spectacularly since Brittany Spears shaved her head. It’s all good fun, right?

Here’s the thing though … it’s now more than a month since Kristan Stewart’s fall from grace and she’s still catching flack. To be more precise, the Twihards hate her. They’re making T-shirts about it. She’s getting death threats. Death threats! Because she cheated on her boyfriend?

All of sudden, the good clean fun of delighting in celebrity gossip is starting to leave a very bad taste in my mouth. I’m not alone. The Huffington Post had a great article about the issue. Even my favorite gossip site has stepped up to defend Ms. Stewart. (I tried to link to both of them, but apparently I’m a link moron.)

What interests me most about this is that the public’s reaction feels like something out of a Regency or Victorian romance novel. Isn’t this exactly the way the Ton would react to scandal? The man involved (who was older, married and had kids) gets a slap on the wrist, while the woman involved is publicly scorned. At the beginning of the summer, she was society’s darling. Now she has practically been emblazoned with a scarlet A.

What do you think? Are you above gossip? (If you are, good for you!) Do you agree that the public’s reaction is very … well, 1815?