Whencefore gossip?

A while ago I was wondering why we love gossip so? Now, reading How We Believe, by Micheal Shermer, I find out.

Gossip helps us to hear stories (and we are story-telling and story-loving animals) about people around us, to inform us about who we can and cannot trust, basically informing about real and potential social contracts that we make in our lives.

Now, to quote:

But why, in our culture, do we gossip about total strangers, namely celebrities? The probable reason is that the mass media make these figures so familiar to us that they seem like relatives, friends, and members of our community. Why would anyone care with whom Princess Diana slept of what her status was in the roal family? Because our Pleistocene brains are being tricked into thinking that Princess Diana is someone we personally know and care about.

Ah-ha!