Because gossip is (nominally, at least) about actual events in the lives of the celebs, wheras RPF is, obviously, not. It's like the difference between a history book and a historical novel. The former in both cases may in fact be wrong, but come with a virtual author's note claiming "this REALLY happened!!!11", whereas the latter come with a (frequently literal) author's note saying "none of this really happened except in my imagination". That's a fairly crucial distinction, even if the formats might sometimes be mistaken for each other. (Well, usually they couldn't. Gossip columns and RPF about Orlando Bloom bottoming for Johnny Depp really have pretty different styles.)
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Date: 2008-06-08 12:15 pm (UTC)Because gossip is (nominally, at least) about actual events in the lives of the celebs, wheras RPF is, obviously, not. It's like the difference between a history book and a historical novel. The former in both cases may in fact be wrong, but come with a virtual author's note claiming "this REALLY happened!!!11", whereas the latter come with a (frequently literal) author's note saying "none of this really happened except in my imagination". That's a fairly crucial distinction, even if the formats might sometimes be mistaken for each other. (Well, usually they couldn't. Gossip columns and RPF about Orlando Bloom bottoming for Johnny Depp really have pretty different styles.)