At the Office, the iTunes Shared Folder is Fabulous Fodder for Gossip

That’s right, peeps. If you really want to pulse on what’s going on at work, there’s a digital grapevine often overlooked that can serve up a hefty portion of juicy. This promising info-pipeline is, no doubt, the iTunes shared folder.

As an ostensibly innocent application of audio wonders and song compilations, iTunes at the office also doubles as a treasure trove of racy rapports—if you learn how to read between the lines, that is.

There’s a lot to be said about a person depending on the music he or she decides to share over iTunes, especially in a corporate setting. And how you name your collection? That's where the honey is, hands down.

Check this out: Recently, one hot-to-trot employee at my office “anonymously” declared his love for a female coworker by naming his iTunes collection Ana, you are the reason I come to work. The songs were sappy and romantic. This digital PDA surprised many an audio junkie at work, especially after the messages started getting racier as the days rolled by.

Quickly, IT set out to catch the horny culprit, and by tracking the music collection-in-question’s IP address, they managed to hone in on the would-be sexual harasser. Everyone found out, and nonstop ridicule ensued—on the iTunes shared folder, no less. Awesome. Technology rocks!

In keeping with the spirit, here’s my online rundown of some music collections currently making the daily rounds at my office’s iTunes shared folder. I hope no one feels slighted (cross my fingers):

take it from behind non-stop hit parade.com
Name: “take it from behind”? Okay... It’s a little aggressive and sexually charged, and the whole thing reads over-the-top. Closeted, much? And what’s with the dot com? That techno-suffix stopped being cool in 1997.
Music: Comprehensive collection, but definitely not a "hit parade." There’s a lot of mainstream alternative, some punk, and… Ricky Martin! Hmm.

kYmBeRlY
Name: So this person resorted to the old lowercase-uppercase-lowercase trick. It’s not chalking up too many creative points in my book, unless she's a third grader that rides the short bus. She could be new, maybe.
Music: It looks like it might be good, since I currently cannot access her collection because of user saturation. Interesting.

mba
Name: Meh.
Music: Blah.

ZIGGY
Name: As in Marley? Could this be a hardcore reggae fan?
Music: No. It’s all trash metal. Pfff, poser. Very disappointing.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. So... are there any breakups and make-ups to report from the iTunes front at your office? Let me know!

Can Civil Oppression Offer Up a Dash of Sexy?

Saucy women's gossip blog Jezebel has decided take on a very pressing issue by crafting a morally weird online poll that throws religion, politics, and gossip into fever pitch. Let's honor this nutty poll and take some time to ponder: Just who, exactly, are hotter—the Bhuddist monks in Burma calling for an end to the ruling military junta, or the scruffy lawyers in Pakistan protesting in favor of democratic institutions?

How to decide? It is quite the predicament for many an informed Internet opinionator. The results currently register a statistical dead-heat. I’m trying to drum up some support for the lawyers myself. Shaved heads on peace-loving monks? Not so much. Middle-class Muslim intelligentsia rallying against an oppressive dictatorship fueled by hyper-religious zeal? Way sexier. Let’s make sure these guys come out on top!

At first, I was a little taken aback by this ridiculous, in-a-thousand-ways objectionable poll. I mean, c'mon, these people are suffering! But after giving the post a once-over, I couldn’t stop laughing. And I voted. Twice. It’s the kind of proposition that’s so offensive, it’s not at all. In some ways, it's actually sympathetic to the plight of these democracy-clamoring revolutionaries.

Here’s how I figure: I’m pretty sure the average Jezebel reader simply doesn’t care what goes on in those far-off parts of the world. With this post, Jezebel manages to pique reader interest in two salient, violence-fueled crisis situations that are escalating as you read this, and does so with a solid dose of tongue-in-cheek humor.

I know, I know, it’s unsavory, insensitive and superficial to create a poll asking which group of oppressed yet “fine-dressed men in Asia” is hotter. But Jezebel makes a good point: As a rule of thumb, what gets more girls, bald heads or shaggy beards?

It's Official: There's No Deep Six'ing Hot Gossip

Can't get enough of Britney, even if her latest slip-ups have entered the realm of the cringe-inducing? Has the celebrity game of musical rehab thrown you into a tizzy? Are you losing sleep over the latest blog trysts with the pseudo-news du jour covering B-listers and celeb-politicians? It's all good. You're not morally off-kilter: It's merely your survival instinct turning tricks, apparently.

No amount of hard facts can stem the rising tide of juicy gossip, and there's an evolutionary reason for this. That's right. Check out this article featured in yesterday's Science section of the New York Times, sent my way by one not-at-all-gossip-averse friend in Brooklyn. The article attests that gossip "promotes the 'indirect reciprocity' that made human society responsible." No matter how rational we may be, hearsay and second-hand accounts way in more heavily on our decision-making process than hard truth and figures. Why? Basically, it helps us get along and thrive as a society and whatnot—scientific fact.

Take that, level-headed lobbyists of fair and balanced journalism! Score, media spinsters and PR! Gossip seems to trump facts time and time again, and molds our society with forceful sway.

Duh. It doesn't take a scientist to tell you this. Publicists have known it all along. But now you know for sure: Even the most artless snoozes care for what others have to say, no matter what they say. It's been hard-coded into our DNA and it is essential for our survival as a species.

So don't buy into the hype that totes gossip as an insidious social evil. It does more good than harm, yes sir. No need to read the studies—you can totally take my word for it.

Next time you see a supermarket tabloid screaming sex and scandal on the news rack next to the latest issue of The Economist, make sure to thank the Creator for our impervious instinct at social prying. It's the reason you and I are alive and kicking—even though our collective psyche may end up a little damaged. In the end, the perception of the truth is more important than truth itself. Dare to disagree?