Gossip Evolution

She told him that they said he knows what she learned about him saying I did what?

"He'd staggered in, covered in blood and mud, carrying a crossbow and, d'you know, when they went back to look there were seven dead men. By the time that sort of story had gone ten miles he'd be carrying an axe as well, and make that thirty dead men and a dog."

— The Fifth Elephant

Whenever tales are spread mouth to mouth, particularly among Gossipy Hens, every speaker adds something of their own, going as far as changing a bar brawl into a raging war between the four largest nations of whichever world the story is placed in.

This trope is mainly about the process, but also describes the outcome, even if the process wasn't shown on screen. Shrouded in Myth is the outcome when this is used to exaggerate a character's badassitude to epic levels. Of course, this process must have taken place to produce the legend; spreading false rumors about oneself in order to gain respect/fame/money/hot babes/whatever the character wants does not apply here. Malicious Slander, alas, also develops through this.

The process is similar to a children's game which goes by many names, such as Broken Telephone, Silent Post, Chinese Whispers and many more. In French it is known as téléphone arabe (Arab Telephone). In this game, one person in a line whispers a sentence into the next person's ear, and by the end of the line, the sentence has evolved into something unrecognizable, and probably lewd, too. When Played for Laughs, the line will typically be incredibly small, such as around five people, while the final rumor will have nothing in common with the original.

Painfully common among certain political circles who shall be collectively known as "low-information voters", and beloved of the demagogues who rely on them for their paychecks. (The political leanings of said voters and demagogues are all over the map.)

Compare Memetic Mutation, Oral Tradition, and Snowball Lie. See also Urban Legends. Can be a cause for God Never Said That, but isn't directly synonymous with it.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Aggretsuko: To hide the fact that she is thinking of quiting her job, Retsuko lies to Kabae that the reason why she is unusually happy is because she was finally able to poop after five days of not being able to. This story quickly evolves into Retsuko having just had a baby.
• A minor example occurs in Attack on Titan. The story is quite literally kicked off when a colossal titan attacks the wall that protects humanity. It's big enough to peak its head over the top of the wall, but rumors and gossip after the attack blew it up to being able to step clear over the wall entirely. The protagonist Eren, who witnessed the attack firsthand, corrects his fellow cadets when they press him for details.
• An early chapter in Negima! Magister Negi Magi had an overheard conversation regarding Negi finding a Partner quickly evolve into a rumor about Negi being a visiting prince! More than 200 chapters later, this turned out to be Foreshadowing.
• A Mobile Fighter G Gundam audio drama has the cast attending a movie (loosely) based on their exploits. Within the movie, The Team and Master Asia engage in the standard shouting match...except that the latter is standing on Tokyo Tower's observation deck while the former is 150 meters below at the tower's base. Because of this, the banter quickly degrades into confusion.
  Movie!Chibodee: I said, "After this, we're coming for you! Prepare yourself!"
  Movie!Master: What?! Did you say "crazy balding shitty old man"?!
• This is part of Shonen Bat's M.O. in Paranoia Agent — as stories of him spread and mutate, he becomes more firmly entrenched in Tokyo's collective consciousness, making him all the more dangerous.
• Rurouni Kenshin: Kenshin Himura, better known as Hitokiri Battousai, actually is as fearsomely skilled as all the stories say. However, people look at the body count he's racked up and assume he must be this huge, intimidating, bloodthirsty hulk of a man, when he's actually a short, skinny Technical Pacifist who wants nothing more than to atone for all the lives he's taken.
• When Mitsuhide of Battle Girls: Time Paradox wants to help Nobunaga's reputation she sends her subordinates to spread rumors about how benevolent and kind she is, especially to children, and that these are her words. Now people are telling each other about how they must bring her the children to eat. The only thing that goes unchanged is that Mitsuhide is the one who started it.
• In Fairy Tail, after Lucy defeats a few bad guys with some luck and her friends' help, rumors soon spread that she's an unstoppable One-Man Army. She has no idea how people can be so mistaken about her.
• Seiji's friend from Midori Days spreads stories about how tough he is but it sometimes gets out of control. He explains Seiji's bandaged hand (hiding Midori) because he smashed it on a car that almost hit him.
• Kitano from Angel Densetsu is made of this. His fearsome appearance lead people to assume all sorts of things about him that turn him into an inhuman monster.
• In Berserk, one of Guts' more famous feats during his time leading the Hawk's Raiders is his killing of somewhere around one hundred Tudor mercenaries in one night, earning him the nickname "Hundred-Man Slayer". Later in the story, Isidro gushes about how badass the leader of the Hawks' Raiders was (unaware that Guts and this man are one and the same), and says he once killed one thousand men in a single night. Guts silently remarks "It's been exaggerated".
• In one Himouto! Umaru-chan story, Umaru overhears some girls discussing rumors about her, such as her brother is handsome, her father is German, and there's a library in her house. Umaru isn't quite sure how those rumors started, but realizes after spending the day with Sylphin that all the rumors apply to her and got turned around such that people think they're about Umaru.
• One Yo-kai Watch episode revolves around a yo-kai, Mr. Blockhead, who invokes this. It begins with Eddie gossiping about how Bear's sister is coming home from abroad. This soon warps into "Bear's sister looks like a mini, female version of him" and "Bear has a sister named Bearmie who is like his clone". The same happens with Nate when Katie spreads gossip about a small stain on his pants; it soon warps into "Nate pees himself every day at 3PM". The rumor about Bearmie is actually true
  Whisper: "He's the yo-kai responsible for simple hearsay getting blown up into crazy rumors and hare-brained runaway gossip. So, for example, you tell a girl you like her new haircut. Next thing you know you whole school thinks you two are getting married in an exotic wedding in a tropical paradise. Blame it on Mr. Blockhead!"
• In Durarara!!, while in the hospital, a bored Izaya decides to spread some rumors about Shizuo for the lulz. It's obvious that he intentionally made them as unflattering as possible for Shizuo while still appearing legit. However, it is also clear that the public has decided to 'expand' on them. The rumors involve Shizuo having been gravely injured after fleeing from the yakuza, while also having become involved with a woman and fathering a kid. What the real kicker is that people actually believe them after seeing Akane and Vorona around Shizuo. This also leads to numerous delinquents thinking that Shizuo is now an easy target and try to kidnap Vorona^note a Mafiya assassin, Akane^note who's carrying a taser, Mairu^note one of Izaya's sisters and a certified badass and Kururi^note Izaya's other sister. It goes about as well as one might think.
• In episode 15a of Tamagotchi, Memetchi teaches Safetytchi a lesson about spreading gossip by doing just that, coming up with a rumor that Safetytchi's hair is made of cotton candy. By the time Mametchi and his gang see people chasing Safetytchi down, the rumor has changed into Safetytchi's hair containing a special lucky clover, and Mametchi explains to a confused Memetchi that people must have changed details in the original piece of gossip every time they told someone else.
• In Dragon Goes House-Hunting, Letty the cowardly dragon is accosted by a group of heroes while searching for a home, and is saved by Dearia, who incinerates the party. The resurrected heroes thought that Letty was the one who had one-shotted them, and when the news spread, people now believe that Letty is capable of destroying an entire city in one fell swoop.
• In Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu, Archbishop Rodrigo's desire to find a certain witch to ascertain her identity somehow becomes the archbishop wanting to reinstitute a Witch Hunt, which ends up being followed by some members of the church. In truth, he was actually trying to find an old friend who had left the church and was rumored to be a witch. Said friend is Ingrid the apothecary.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL has an episode where Shark says he'll only allow someone to date his sister Rio if they're as good of a duelist as Yuma. Some minor characters overhear this and spread rumors about how they think Yuma and Rio are actually dating. By the end of the episode, the truth of their actions is brought to light and they're treated to an angry Rio.
• Ghost Sweeper Mikami: One episode has Yokoshima and Okinu trying to help a nerdy student prepare for his college entrance exam. When one of Yokoshima's classmates calls him home and Okinu answers, he assumes that Yokoshima has a girlfriend and immediately begins calling the rest of his friends to tell them about it. The gossip spreads into adding Yokoshima got a girl pregnant and has a child, and even that Yokoshima is dating a man of all things, resulting in everyone chasing Yokoshima through the street to confront him about it.

Art

• Norman Rockwell's painting The Gossips provides the page image.

Asian Animation

• In episode 32 of Boonie Cubs, Tiki and Babu mistake Coach Mac for a monster and tell this story to Billy. Warren overhears the story without reaching the point where they explain it's just the coach, and he ends up jumping to the conclusion that there really is a monster and spreads the rumor to everyone, creating an entity called the "Gulu Monster" (named after the "gulululululu" sound it makes, which is actually Coach Mac's Growling Gut) that develops different features from wings to invisibility as people spread the rumor about it.

Comic Books

• Happens in the story "Suzanna" from the Belgium comic book series Sarah And Robin. Early in the story, a couple of hippies/gypsies enter the village in their van, and accidentally cause a man to fall off his bike. The gossip about the newcomers and what they did soon spreads, and by the end has turned into an outright lie stating that the gypsies are violent murderers who recently robbed an entire retirement home and killed all its inhabitants.
• In Archie Comics, a social experiment involves the lecturer whispering a simple story to one of the students, who would then relay it to another, then to another; the lecturer says that the story will be muddled up for each student it passes. Except the last student in line is Big Moose, and he happens to repeat the story word-for-word to the lecturer, impressing him.
• In The Smurfs story "The Reporter Smurf", Fisher Smurf's story about simply losing his catch of the day evolves into a story about him fighting a monster in the lake when the story gets passed around from one Smurf to another.
• Ultimate Spider-Man:
  • The other girls in the school said that Peter threw up on Mary Jane's shoes during the spider incident at Oscorp. He didn't. But hey, that's what they say. They even call her "spew shoes". MJ retorts that this is "almost clever for them."
  • Flash picks a fight with Parker, who tries to elude him as best as he can. He finally lands a punch, and Peter tries to stop it. But, with his increased strength, he breaks Flash's arm. We can see him in tears, whispering "I told him... I said... I didn't want to fight". Harry wasn't present, so Kong explains what happened. According to him, it was awesome! And Peter shouted "Next time, I'm gonna kill you! It's payback time!" after doing it.

Fairy Tales

• In Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale "It's Perfectly True!", some literal Gossipy Hens pass around what becomes the story of five hens plucking all their feathers off and dying for the love of a rooster, though it started with nothing more than one hen losing just one feather while preening herself. Through Memetic Mutation this story has given rise to a common proverb in Danish: "A small feather can turn into five hens."

Fan Works

• Dragon Ball Z Abridged episode 31 features Krillin observing Gohan fishing for himself and Chi-Chi by punching fish out of the rivers around their home. He phrases it throughout the episode as "pounding [her] tuna". At the end of the episode, the rumor has gotten to her, so she flies all the way to Kame House to demand answers. And when Krillin interjects in order to explain, it actually gets worse.
  Chi-Chi: Alright! I demand to know who has been spreading rumors that I have been forcing Gohan to, and I quote, POUND MY TUNA!
  Krillin: Look Chi-Chi, if it really upsets you, we'll all take turns pounding your tuna, ok? But, only if we get to eat it together.
  Roshi: (off-screen) ...Heh heh heh HEH HEH! AAAAAAlHAA! AAAA-
• Dungeon Keeper Ami features a rather interesting case. Though the tales of Mercury's brilliant and innovative magic, as well as her prowess in battle, are rarely exaggerated (possibly because those defy understanding or belief in the first place). She somehow cannot for the life of her escape the ever-evolving-rumors of her supposed sexual deviancy. Of course, it doesn't help that she has many enemies that can benefit from any and all damage to her reputation.
• An Invoked Trope in First Try Series, where Barako paints herself as incredibly worried over her daughter, Sakura's safety in the hands of her teachers and team in hopes of it escalating. Subverted as Danzo quickly puts a stop to it and plays it straight by ruining Barako.
• In A Delicate Balance, one of these is responsible for Rainbow Dash believing that a love triangle is forming between three of her friends. Then subverted, as when Rarity hears the rumor she traces it back to the source and confirms the inaccuracy.
• In The Great Alicorn Hunt, this turns out to have been behind the CMC's Person of Mass Destruction reputation. Basically, they seemed to always be present when something went into disaster, ponies had selective memories and gossip tarnished their reputation beyond easy repair. Given that those same Gossipy Hens did absolutely nothing when Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon mercilessly bullied them, the trio ain't happy.
• Hard Being Pure:
  • Carol, Alvin and James are guilty or spreading exaggerations around, although Carol does try to control more or less the way the gossip evolves.
  • Becky's version of the incident with Floyd is quite different from the version Carol heard through her gossip channels.
• In Blessed Blood the rumors concerning Harry's rescue of Ginny and defeat of Tom Riddle's memory and the basilisk become wilder and wilder.
  "No, I'm telling you that I heard it from Zach, who heard it from Blaise, who heard it from Vince, who heard it from Dean, who overheard Ginny! Harry was teleported to an underground fortress and dueled the Lord of Giants. He was forced to defeat the monster in a series of tasks, the last of which was how far one could throw a boulder! That is why the ground shook that day... duh..."
• Fairy Tail:
  Chinese Whispers was a fun game in theory, but [Harry] had seen it in action throughout Privet Drive, and it forced poor Mr. Drivenger to move away. Someone found out he used to be a priest before retiring. Somehow in the space of a month, 'Mr. Drivenger was a priest before he retired', became 'Mr. Drivenger got caught molesting the choir boys as a priest and forced to retire'.
• Mr and Mrs Gold: Given the unusual nature of their relationship, people all over Storybrooke have formed their theories on the nature of the Golds' marriage, from mail-order brides to paying off Mr. French’s debts to her being a Gold Digger. Naturally, Emma does not believe any of them.
• Afterglow:
  The story of Fred, George, and Angelina's departure became legend quickly, being retold over and over each time with new additions. One day the twins were said to have dumped a bucket of hippogriff dung over Umbridge, other days they set her on fire, but each story was told with pride and a whisper of mutual rebellion.
• To Judge A Book:
  Harry: Can anybody clue me in on why I was welcomed like a member of royalty?
  Hermione: As grandiose as Hogwarts is, at the end of the day it is still a boarding school and as such, full of teenagers who just love to gossip. Dumbledore tried to hush up the whole thing but whispers started spreading and I think it got to the stage where you rescued another student, tore the head of the troll off with your bare hands and drunk the blood from its skull.
• Bequeathed from Pale Estates: This is how Joffrey got his Embarrassing Nickname, "The Prince of Tongues". After hearing about the incident that led to it, Robb Stark coined it and wrote it in a letter to his half-sister Lyarra Martell. Lyarra promptly told her husband Oberyn, who then slipped it to Monford Velaryon (a well-known Targaryen loyalist). After that, it was all over King's Landing and to the rest of Westeros. Ned is exasperated when he finds out.
• Midgard Legends has Luke Olson knocking his drill sergeant in basic and narrowly avoiding a grenade. A few weeks later, his friend Ray cheerfully claims Luke killed the sergeant and was unfazed by the grenade exploding in his face.
• Lila Rossi finds herself on the wrong end of this in Missing (Miraculous Ladybug) after her true nature is exposed. By the time she leaves College Francoise Dupont, the rumor mill is suggesting that she caused Marinette's disappearance, and might be involved with human trafficking. Not the kind of stories she ever wanted circulating about her...
• In Warmth, after Izuku and Ochako wake up to find that Ochako sleepwalked into his dorm, they tell Eri (who followed Ochako after waking up from a nightmare) to go ahead for breakfast while the two deal wrestle with their discovered feelings for each other. When Eri tells the other students and a few teachers that the two will be coming after wrestling, they (except Bakugo, who takes it as the two having a spar before training) mistake it for a Double Entendre for sex. It doesn't help that when Ochako and Izuku comes down, she tells him that he is good with his hands (specifically with massages).
• In A Harmonious Beginning Harry and Hermione overhear a wide variety of rumors after their joint defeat of the troll.
  Gossip #1: I heard Potter pushed it through a wall.
  Gossip #2: Please, it was obviously Granger who got a werewolf to eat it.
  Gossip #3: No way, it was Potter. He created a special curse for it.
• The Eternal Point:
  No one knew for sure what had happened in the girls' restroom, but by the time the news made its way to the Slytherin first years it had taken on an almost otherworldly status. Apparently Hermione Granger had been trapped, alone, cornered by the troll, when Ron Weasley and Neville Longbottom burst in, using spells and hexes even fourth years would struggle with. By the time it was over they'd beaten the troll within an inch of its life and had it groveling on its knees, begging for mercy.
• In the Punch-Out!! fanfic Shining and Sweet chapter "Telephone", Aran Ryan texts Disco Kid to tell him that he'll be late for work because someone made a bags^note Irish slang for "made a huge mess" in the lobby of his apartment building, and he can't leave until it's fixed. Disco Kid relays this info to the referee, and it gets twisted further and further until the boxers think that Aran has started a sewing business as a side hustle.
• A Thing of Vikings: This is bound to happen in a world where most information is relayed by word of mouth, even as the Dragon Mail revolutionizes communication, drastically cutting down the time needed for messages to travel.
  • By the time the story of the Green Death has reached the Rus' there are at least two versions of the story. One where the giant dragon was killed by the Berkians, and a second where it came to Berk and destroyed it.
  • By the time Viggo arrives to Normandy the story goes that Hiccup killed not one, but two giant dragons, and that his prosthetic leg is magical, having been crafted from mystical woods and metals.
  • The story of what happened in France is so distorted by the time it reaches Viggo in Al Jazīra that he hears several versions that all conflict with each other. Some say Berk declared war on Francia, some the other way around, some that they invaded Normandy, others that they arrived to help the Duke of Normandy.
• Thy Good Neighbor exploits and inverts this. Lord Fairchild, a mysterious nobleman hailing from the lands of Yharnam, beyond the Sunset Sea, with his equally mysterious silver-haired wife, granted Lord Rickard Stark an obscene amount of plate glass of a quality hitherto unknown in Westeros, in exchange for seven years of rent of the Wolfswood, bringing with him knowledge and power unknown to the Seven Kingdoms. In exchange for confirming Robert Baratheon's betrothal with Lyanna Stark, Steffon Baratheon promises to report to Aerys that Rickard is an easily-duped clown who has been cheated into accepting sandy, near-useless glass peddled by a Myrish exile and has mistaken a completely normal, fair-haired lady for a daughter of Valyria, and that all stories to the contrary are idiotic smallfolk talk.

Films — Animated

• May or may not have happened in Finding Nemo, since we don't hear the full story when it's told the first or last time, and what we actually hear from the final version has really happened. However, it's phrased so that Marlin sounds like a total badass, when in reality he was more of an Action Survivor.
• Z's accidental kidnapping of Princess Bala in Antz becomes subject to this, and he becomes a role model for workers who want to be treated better by the colony. It doesn't last long as General Mandible quells the protests by portraying Z as a selfish kidnapper.
• Strange Magic: The Dark Forest has mushrooms that provide intel to the Bog King but since they are immobile, they have to whisper it mushroom to mushroom until it gets to a goblin. The results are nonsensical though The Tag shows that may be because of the goblin.
• Parodied in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa where the monkeys' relaying of Alex's message changed "She's got a gun, let's get out while we can" to "Let's have fun and take out the dam" and "No, pull up. You'll kill us. There's got to be another way" to "No pull up. Kill us. There's no other way" And "pass it on" was "basset hound".

Films — Live-Action

• Bottoms: The night of the fair, Hazel mistakenly thinks PJ and Josie were in juvie over the summer, and Josie gently taps Jeff's knee with her car. By the next morning's history class, everyone now thinks PJ and Josie killed people in juvie and that they beat up Jeff. Even Isabel, who was there for the latter incident, thinks that.
• Braveheart:
  • By the time of the Battle of Stirling, tall tales of William Wallace's baddassery have started making it back to him:
  Wallace: "I am William Wallace!"
  Scotsman: "William Wallace is seven feet tall!"
  Wallace: "Yes, I've heard. Kills men by the hundreds! And if he were here, he'd consume the English with fireballs from his eyes, and bolts of lightning from his arse!"
  • Later we hear the word spreading about Wallace having killed 50 men single-handedly, which turns into 100 men after some relays.
• This happens several times in Easy A, even before Olive starts to encourage it.
  Olive: I worry about the way information circulates at this school.
• Done tragically in Fury (1936). A man is arrested on flimsy circumstantial evidence for a kidnapping affair, and gossip quickly degenerates it to the point that an Angry Mob forms to lynch him.
• In Ali G Indahouse, dozens of wannabe gangsters create a human chain from the Big Bad's office to a car battery to use the car's electric current to blow a safe. Ali whispers "switch on the engine, pass it on" down the chain and by the time the message reaches the driver of the car, it's "bitch on a pension, suck my dong!"
• This is central to the plot of Gossip... unsurprisingly. In fact it deconstructs the potential damage it can cause.
• Lampshaded in the Michael Keaton gangster movie spoof Johnny Dangerously.
  Prisoner: Johnny and The Mothers are playing "Stompin' at the Savoy" in Vermont tonight.
  Johnny: *gasp*...Vermin's gonna kill my brother at the Savoy Theater tonight!
  Prisoner: That ain't what I said.
  Johnny: No, but I know this grapevine.
• L.A. Confidential: Two police officers, Helenowski and Brown, are beaten up by a group of Mexican hoodlums. The word about what happened gets more dramatic with each telling: according to Exley, they're on leave from active duty with some bruises, but by the time the assault suspects are brought in, Vincennes is claiming that Helenowski lost six pints of blood and Brown is in a coma, while the (incredibly inebriated) cops at the Christmas party are claiming that Helenowski is partially blind and Brown is on his death bed. The cops, having already worked themselves into a frenzy, proceed to take it out on the Mexicans.
• Happens in Love Actually when a British character visits Portugal to propose - the rumour rapidly escalates from "he wants to marry Aurelia" to "he wants to kill Aurelia!"
• This happened in Sergeant York when he captures an entire German division single handed. The identity of his prisoners change with each retelling until finally everyone thinks he captured the Kaiser.
• This is what sets off the plot to the Jennifer Aniston Romantic Comedy Rumor Has It... - Aniston's character Sarah hears that her mother ran off with another man a week before marrying her father, then hears that this incident helped inspire the movie The Graduate with Sarah's grandmother being personally identified as Mrs. Robinson. The movie's plot is Sarah's quest to determine if the rumor is true.
• On Moonlight Bay has the main character's father, George Winfield, be the subject of a rumor that he is cheating on his wife, Alice, with a sexy French actress. By the end of the film, people are deliberately snubbing George and pitying Alice, who are the only two people completely ignorant of the rumor.
• Lust for Gold: Happens several times with the crowd gathered round the assay office as Walz's has his ore assessed. For example, Walz's reluctance to sign the receipt gets passed along a line of people till it turns into him being unable to read or write at all.
• Unforgiven: The trouble in the film starts when a cowboy cuts up a young prostitute's face for giggling at his dick. Though the girl's beauty is ruined, she is otherwise fine. When the Schofield Kid tells Munny about the attack, he adds that the girl's eyes were cut out as well, which isn't true. When Munny tells Ned about the attack, he adds that the cowboy also severed a finger and slashed her breasts as well, neither of which are true. Later when the Schofield Kid fatally shoots Mike in the outhouse, he explains that Mike was going for the gun on his belt... the gun belt which in reality was hanging up on the door and well out of Mike's reach (he was reaching out, but he was pleading with the Kid to not shoot him). The film strongly implies on multiple occasions that this form of gossip and stories that are exaggerated, retold, and exaggerated again are the basis for many western legends, with the truth behind these incidents (if there is any) inevitably forgotten or obscured by the half truths and legends they spawn.

Jokes

• A Russian-Jewish joke: "Did you hear that Rabinovich just won a car in a lottery?" "Why, yes. But that wasn't Rabinovich but Tzipperovich, that wasn't a lottery but a card game, that wasn't a car but a dacha, and that wasn't a win, that was a loss".
• Russian Humour is fond of these, often putting them in the form of Radio Yerevan jokes, usually with implications of censorship as well:
  Caller: Is it true that in Moscow, Mercedes cars are being given to citizens?
  Radio Yerevan: Yes, but it is not Moscow but Leningrad, not Mercedes but Ladas, and not given to but stolen from.
  
  Caller: Is it true that comrade cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's car was stolen in Moscow during the celebrations?
  Radio Yerevan: In principle yes, but it was not in Moscow but Kiev, and it was not his car but his bike, and it was not comrade cosmonaut Gagarin but comrade high school teacher Gagarin, and his first name was not Yuri but Leonid...

Literature

• In one 1632 short story, titled "Other People's Money" after the film, the epontymous mutual fund is started because of two words overheard at an inn and shared with speculators.
  • Also occurs in the novel "The Viennese Waltz", where a serving girl overheard Sarah's testimony about the Bank of Amsterdam being a fractional reserve bank (which has only a percentage of its deposits being backed by hard assets such as silver), which evolved into "Her computer proved that the Bank of Vienna (supposedly a full reserve bank) does not have enough silver to back up Vienna's money". The fact that, coincidentally, several people had been stealing silver for long enough to make that true just enhanced Sarah's reputation for banking knowledge.
• Played for Drama in the first book of Annals of the Western Shore when Orrec accidentally "unmakes" a whole hillside. Wild tales of his uncontrolled power spread all over the Uplands, and if disbelieved, the hillside is always offered as proof. It gives Caspromant a very intimidating reputation. Which was what Orrec's father was trying to accomplish to counteract Orrec not actually having any gift.
• This happens with Matthew Stark in Cloud of Sparrows. He kills a number of men, and is witnessed a few times. Stories grow in the telling, so that it gets to the point where people think Matthew Stark is eight feet tall with a scar across one eye, never eats and only drinks whiskey, prefers beating women to shagging them, and only shags them when he's beaten them to within an inch of their lives. In fact, the real Stark is able to move around unnoticed simply by calling himself Matthews.
• In Cooking With Wild Game, a child mentions to her family (and no one else) that a foreigner moved into Ai Fa's house. Five days later, practically everyone in that family thinks they're lovers.
• In the Discworld book The Fifth Elephant, Vimes—with help, including a trained assassin and some tactical planning—dispatches seven bandits in a shot; however, as he predicts, the rumor spreads faster and wider. Eventually, he finds himself in a building miles away from where it happens, and overhears a conversation ending with "...and a dog."
• One Diary of a Wimpy Kid book has Rodrick try to get even with Greg by spreading the word of an incident where Greg accidentally locked himself in the ladies' restroom at their grandfather's retirement home. This backfires, since the story ends up getting mutated into Greg sneaking into the girls' changing room at Crosslands High School, turning Greg into a minor celebrity. Greg is especially surprised by how twisted the story got considering it had to have passed through three layers of people and got turned into something else entirely within a short amount of time.^note Roderick told the story to his friends who had siblings at Greg's school and proceeded to tell them, then it got passed onto their friends.
• At one point in Dune Paul is with a force of Fremen warriors which is ambushed by several Imperial Sardaukar, which the Fremen decimate. Paul somberly notes that as his reputation as the Fremen's holy savior grows, the stories will say that he single handedly killed scores of Sardaukar, even though he didn't even draw his knife.
• Both the tree people and cave dwellers in the Green-Sky Trilogy are inclined to this. With no written media to speak of, nearly all communication is by word of mouth. Raamo knows himself to be a plain person, who with his friends makes some unusual discoveries — the next thing he knows his kid sister is a Holy Child and he's The One Who Was Foretold In Prophecy...
• Harry Potter:
  • Inverted in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, when it turned out that Harry's battle at the end was "one of those rare occasions when the true story is even more strange and exciting than the wild rumors". Weirdly, at the end of every school year he gets into something very dangerous and fantastic and generally impressive to most people. He's frustrated that they think he's so special because he is usually just desperate to survive.
  • Played straight in other instances, such as the Weasley twins' escape from Umbridge in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It gets retold so often that within a week, even eyewitnesses are convinced they pelted her with Dungbombs before flying off.
• The children's book Hen Hears Gossip involves this, with Hen, who started the gossip by repeating what she "overheard," finding the message has turned into a slight against herself. Unlike in most stories, the characters follow the gossip train back to each source until they discover what the original message was.
• J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings features various examples, notably the gossip that spreads in the city Minas Tirith about the various going-ons and visiting protagonists. The one about Pippin being a prince of the halflings is (according to the appendices) helped a great deal by Separated by a Common Language: The hobbit variety of the Common Speech doesn't have the distinction between "familiar you" and "respectful you" present in other dialects^note much like English itself, though we went the other way and kept the formal one (you) rather than the familiar one (thou). So to the citizens of Gondor, Pippin was talking to Denethor as if they were at the same level.
• The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks: In book 5, Michael tells a few of his friends about his family going on a weekend trip, which will include a one-night stay at a natural history museum with some other kids and a field trip to a dig site the day afterward. One of their nosier classmates overhears and spreads it, and Norman tells several of his classmates too. This trope takes its course, and Michael hears several equally wild versions by the end of the day (even the principal isn't immune to believing one of them, coming up to Michael and congratulating him on going to Mongolia to find dinosaur eggs and being somewhat disappointed when Michael corrects him); the next morning, when said principal hears the rumor has evolved to involve a live tyrannosaurus on a destructive rampage in Cleveland, he puts a stop to the gossip by announcing the true story over the PA.
• In book one of the Ranger's Apprentice series, the higher-ups invite apprentices Will and Horace on a boar hunt. Things get out of hand and Will ends up distracting a boar from Horace, saving his life. The village folk lead a very monotonous life, so they enjoy anything out of the ordinary, and by the end of the week, the story runs that Will killed both boars himself with a single arrow. Will, being an honest young man, finds it embarrassing to receive all this adulation for something he didn't do.
• John Steinbeck was a war correspondent in World War II. His short story, "Mussolini" describes how the 1943 news of the King of Italy dismissing Benito Mussolini leading to rumors of Turkey joining in the fight against the Axis, Paris being liberated after a cross-channel invasion, and the end of WWII.
• "My Name is Gossip," penned by an unknown author and expanded upon in an essay by author Janet Treadway, explains the real-life results of gossip – everything from broken friendships and marriages to lost jobs, toppled governments, ruined reputations and suicide – often through evolution. Treadway's full essay, which takes a Christian context, can be read here, and the poem has frequently been published by advice columnists, including Ann Landers and her successor, Annie's Mailbox.
• This is the plot of the Polish children's poem Ptasie plotki ("Bird gossip"). In the beginning, a finch mentions offhandedly that she might get a cold today. By the end of the poem, news are going around that the finch has died from a terrible throat disease (much to the finch herself's consternation).
• At the end of the first book of A Song of Ice and Fire, Robert Baratheon is killed while hunting a boar. As seen in Arya's POV shortly after, the rumors ascribe his death to one of several things, including choking on a fishbone, being poisoned at the table, and dying by eating an entire boar and rupturing at the table.
• In Lewis Carroll's Sylvie and Bruno, why Lady Muriel's engagement was broken:
  "And what reasons have you heard of for breaking off the engagement?"
  "A good many," Arthur replied, and proceeded to count them on his fingers. "First, it was found that she was dying of—something; so he broke it off. Then it was found that he was dying of—some other thing; so she broke it off. Then the Major turned out to be a confirmed gamester; so the Earl broke it off. Then the Earl insulted him; so the Major broke it off. It got a good deal broken off, all things considered!"
  "You have all this on the very best authority, of course?"
  "Oh, certainly! And communicated in the strictest confidence! Whatever defects Elveston society suffers from, want of information isn't one of them!"
• A lot of Dante's La Vita Nuova is addressed to a pretty woman he doesn't really care about so people don't find out he's really in love with Beatrice. Problem is, he writes so much cover poetry that Florence's gossipers make Dante out to be lusting after his cover woman. Not wanting to cause a scandal, Beatrice refuses even to say hello to her secret admirer.
• The process is described - complete with an Evolutionary theory reference! - in A Civil Campaign, when half-drunk high-Vor town-clown and Domestic Intelligence asset Byerly Vorrutyer is describing the conversation at a recent dinner party he attended. "...a theory was born. And evolved rapidly, in a sort of punctuated equilibrium, to a full-blown Slander even as I watched. It was just fascinating." Ivan, rapidly catching on to what the slander must be^note (an accusation of murder) and who it must be aimed at^note (his cousin Miles), can only whisper "Oh, shit."
• The Wheel of Time: Several books in the series end like this, with an omniscient narrator describing gossip versions of the main event of the book. The narrator mentions several contradictory versions of the big epic battle but one important, portentous detail that all the different rumors agree on. Something similar happens in-story several times as well, where characters hear twisted versions of events of the narration as rumors, sometimes even things the characters were present for. The rumors are usually wrong on important details, and the viewpoint characters are usually happy to know that their role in the real events remains obscure.
• A recurring feature of Wizard Of The Crow. At several points in the novel, rather than directly describe an event, the narrator offers a round-up of the contradictory and increasingly-unlikely rumors that spread about it in following days. The parts narrated by Arigaigai are no better, even though he was genuinely an eyewitness to many key moments, because Arigaigai is a one-man gossip evolution machine whose accounts get more imaginative additions every time he retells them to a new audience, especially if the audience is shouting him drinks. For instance, an incident when he chased two beggars, occasionally losing track of one or both, grows in retelling until it's the story of how he pursued a spirit being that sometimes appeared in one and sometimes in two separate bodies, and wrestled with it all night for the safety of the nation. It all contributes to the ambiguity about just how many of the miraculous things that happen in the novel really happened.
• In Wyrm, Mike spends days tracking down the source of a rumor about Richard Dworkin only to discover he himself started it.

Live-Action TV

• On 30 Rock, Liz and Tracy started a rumor that rapper T.I. might show up at Kenneth's party in order to get people to come. By the time it got back to them, the word was that Kenneth was going to have an epic bash with T.I., Fall Out Boy and foxy boxing. Tracy hilariously didn't recognize it as his own rumor. As word got around about what an awesome party it would be a few of the celebrities they said were coming actually showed up.
• In Episode 6 of Andor, a half dozen lightly armed rebels infiltrate a small Imperial garrison at a time when most of the soldiers are away from the base so they can steal the money in the garrison's vault. When The Heist is discovered at the last minute, they get into a shootout with the handful of troops that were in the garrison before fleeing. All told the Imperials probably lost no more than 10 men at most, including those who died in the shootout, one visiting officer, a group of three pilots who flew into nearly suicidal conditions trying to intercept the rebel getaway (and were killed by said conditions without the rebels firing a shot at them), and the garrison's commandant, who keeled over from a heart attack just before the firefight started. Later in the series there are some throw away lines where characters describe it as the rebels "blowing up" or "slaughtering" the garrison.^note It's possible that some of the exaggerations come from either Imperial propaganda exaggerating the scope of the attack, or people who are desperate to ignore the increasingly open despotism of The Emperor, and to try to mentally justify the extreme and wide ranging crackdown enacted in response to the raid. If so this would tie in to some of the show's themes about conditions in a despotic regime, as well as the theories of Nemik.
• Poked fun at in The Andy Griffith Show in "Those Gossipin' Men". Andy picks up a bandage for Barney at the drugstore, claiming Barney hurt himself with his gun. Once the women of Mayberry get circulating this news over the phones, and after a good deal of Poor Communication Kills Aunt Bea believes Barney accidentally shot himself and is dead. Only to discover Barney just pinched himself with the trigger and barely broke the skin. Andy rubs it in her face how it only took an hour from getting a cut to being declared dead. Andy continues to give her a hard time about how women always spread gossip, but the tables turn when a travelling shoe salesman from New York is mistaken for a Hollywood talent scout by the men of Mayberry in a similar manner. (With Aunt Bee's help.)
  • On more than one occasion, Barney convinces a lot of people, possibly even most of the town, that Andy and Helen Crump are about to elope, based on his own misreading of evidence on hand. One instance was a mixup involving Andy being cited by a game warden because he left his wallet with his fishing license at home; his request for Barney to bring it to him at the justice of the peace office in the next county, was enough for Barney to recruit a wedding party to come with him.
• In As The Bell Rings, Skipper and Brooke are discussing how Skipper's supposed to meet her at her house so that they can do their science project, but that Skipper has to be careful because she has an overprotective dog named Bear. Guess what happens next.
• In As Time Goes By, Lionel and Jean give the Upper-Class Twit "townies" a piece of their minds when they realize the ringleader had Lol the gardener beat up. The next time they visit the country, the village is wild with tales of the barbecue being put out with a fire extinguisher, the fictitious "KBM" (kicked by mule) medal Jean claimed that Lionel had becomes the Victoria Cross, and there's a debate over how many townies got thrown over the hedge. Jean "admits" that it was two instead of six just because it's fun to have a reputation.
• Blake's 7: The Terran Federation has been censoring news about Blake's activities, but the word is still spreading via the grapevine and growing with repetition, as every setback the Federation suffers is assumed to be Blake's work.
• Done for comedy in Boy Meets World a few times. One notable went from, by way of Noodle Incident, "Topanga is pregnant" to "Cory and Topanga are looking to adopt a 14-year-old kid from China and need to overcome the language barrier". When Mr. Feeney informs Cory of this, he gives the original rumor in front of his parents, prompting Feeney to leave so that he may "inform the grocer about his misinformation." Point of reference: Topanga was never pregnant, but just going on a diet.
• Cliff Clavin attempted to demonstrate this on Cheers by telling someone about having won a few dollars, only for it to circle the bar and be totally accurate because everyone focused on 'the loser bragging about having won $5'.
• Played for Drama in Foyle's War. When Milner argues with his estranged wife in a local cafe, he ends the tense conversation by telling her to stay away from him and his new partner "or else" and then leaves as everyone else watches. When Jane Milner is found murdered, the story comes to Foyle as it being a violent row.
• Deconstructed on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver during the segment on public shaming. John Oliver points out how too often, the supposed transgression often gets warped out context to the point that the backlash becomes highly excessive.
• Little House on the Prairie: Harriet Oleson's favorite pastime was gossip, and frequently she would take a rumor – or less frequently, something that actually did happen – put her spin on it (especially if the person involved was someone she didn't like) and spread the word. Examples of very negative outcomes:
  • "Harriet's Happenings": She publishes a story claiming that the Erich Schiller, who defeated her daughter, Nellie, in the finals of the county spelling bee, has parents who are illiterate. Erich temporarily quits school as a result, but Charles and Erich's father convinces him to return. By the way, Erich's parents indeed couldn't read English, but were fluent in German. Later, she publishes a story claiming that Charles is Albert's biological father, which Charles quickly nips in the bud.
  • "Crossed Connections": Mrs. Oleson eavesdrops on a conversation between Alice Garvey and her mother, and it is here that she learns that Alice had been married before. Jonathan is outraged and it temporarily causes the breakup of the family.
  • "Sylvia": Mrs. Oleson – again via eavesdropping on a phone conversation – learns that a 14-year-old girl named Sylvia was pregnant. Ignorant to the truth (a rapist had impregnated her), she quickly spreads a rumor that Albert is the father. Caroline makes Mrs. Oleson see otherwise.
  • "Sins of the Fathers": In her final attempt to be a newspaper writer, Mrs. Oleson publishes the unsavory past of a young woman – now reformed – had just started a new business in Walnut Grove. The woman quickly relapses into alcoholism and literally destroys her home.
• A MADtv sketch had a "telephone-style" version. A prisoner is trying to secretly spread the message about a jailbreak by having everyone whisper it to each other, but it quickly mutates into nonsense as it's repeated (including a person who ends up saying "Some of the guys are going to get together later tonight to read The Last of the Mohicans every single time). The prisoner eventually resorts to writing the message down on a piece of paper and passing it around, but it still changes from person to person.
• In the fifth season premiere of M*A*S*H, Radar gets told that HQ is going to order the 4077th to move ten miles down the road. Within three links, the camp becomes convinced that an entire enemy battalion is inbound. Colonel Potter addresses the entire camp to refute the rumors, only to be interrupted halfway through by a legitimate order to bug-out. An atypical example where the rumour got more accurate.
• On one episode of The Mentalist, Jane exploits this effect to flush out a suspect. Since everyone at a party knows he's working with the police, he drops a few cryptic but dark hints about an authority figure's relationship to the deceased. By the time the story gets around to him again, the authority figure has become a girlfriend-beating date-raping sexual harasser. Based on the rumors, the suspect confronted the authority figure, in the sense of physically attacking him until restrained by the police. Alas, she wasn't the killer.
• My Left Nut: When Mick and Conor are wondering about how the rumor that Rachael gave Mick a blowjob got spread, Conor (correctly) assumes it was a case of evolving gossip. Rachael told Siobhan that Mick has a Gag Penis, and Siobhan (who's a Gossipy Hens) told a bunch of other people until the truth got twisted. Rachael herself admits this is likely true and is miffed that her Best Friend ended up being the one behind her Slut-Shaming rumors.
• Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide to Rumors started this way. Ned was talking to Claire about his friend Moze, which Claire insisted wanted to be called Jennifer. Ned says he likes "Moze" (that is, to call his friend Moze), but this is misheard as "Ned likes Moze" and quickly evolves into "Ned and Moze are dating".
• In the NewsRadio episode "The Station Sale", Joe says that last time Robertson Communications took over a station, they fired half the staff and made everyone else take pay cuts. When Beth repeats this, she says they fired half the staff and made everyone else get haircuts. When Catherine repeats it, she says, "At the last station Robertson bought, they eliminated Half and Half and made everyone eat cold cuts!"
• Prince Dowon in Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung is a Sheltered Aristocrat who lives in a secluded part of the palace and never attends any public occasions. This strange living arrangement caused rumors to rise that he is diseased or even mad. He is the son of the previously deposed king. It is feared that he will become a figurehead of revolt if his existence is revealed.
• An episode of Roger and the Rottentrolls used this: The final product detailed the accused as declaring "I am Eric Cantona!" before kicking a sheep up the backside.
• In Season 3 of Sea Patrol, 2Dads notes the bond of Kate "X" McGregor and Buffer after they give him a (deserved) dressing down over failing to gas up a pursuit raft. Before long, the entire ship is buzzing about the two having an affair. Nikki even tries to give Kate "advice" on dating a crewmember and doesn't seem to believe Kate's denials of nothing happening. When Captain Mike Flynn hears it, he has the pair brought to his cabin, where they assure him there's nothing going on. 2Dads claims it was just a joke that got out of hand but when he brings up the "sparks" of the pair, Flynn is ready to toss him off the ship in the middle of the ocean. Buffer and X decide to just let this rumor die out rather than add to it with an open denial to the crew but do give 2Dads an appropriate (and disgusting) punishment of "retrieving" the pearls a crook swallowed.
• In The Sopranos episode "Irregular Around the Margins", Tony Soprano and Adriana, his cousin Christopher's fiance, are caught in a car accident late at night. The circumstances make it seem like they were having an affair, which is further complicated because both were seriously considering it. When word of mouth about the incident spreads it starts out with Tony getting away from the accident unharmed while Adriana suffered a blow to the head and ends with Adriana still giving Tony head when the paramedics found them.
• The Suite Life of Zack & Cody
  • London walks in on Maddie and Lance practicing CPR and mistakes it for them making out; she proceeds to tell Estaban, who tells Muriel, who tells everyone else. The rumor went from "I saw Maddie and Lance kissing in the other room" to "Maddie and Lance were making out in the other room, are secretly betrothed, and plan on running away to Vegas to have their own grape vineyard."
  • The episode where they're in band class and the rumor goes from something about a guy making a move and there being some drama to them being in love, moving to Russia, and raising llamas.
• Exploited in Teenage Bounty Hunters when April is blackmailing Sterling over finding a used condom wrapper in her bag, and revealing this would make her a social pariah at their school. Blair foils her by telling people she found a used condom wrapper in school with no indication of who'd used it, causing everyone to speculate. Before long April would just be throwing another rumor on the pile if she tried to tell anyone.
• The Wire:
  • Stringer Bell hears that two of his men have spotted stick-up man Omar, and gives the okay for them to attack despite it being Sunday (the traditional "truce" day when underworld business is set aside). What he doesn't know is that not only is it Sunday, but Omar is in the middle of taking his grandmother to church when the hitmen strike. Both Omar and his grandmother narrowly escape and are unharmed, but Stringer's partner Avon later mentions stories making the rounds among the other drug lords (who are all appalled by the whole thing) about their people shooting her and urinating on her fancy church hat.
  • The deaths of Stringer and Omar also become street legend through gossip, albeit in very different ways. After Stringer's death, Marlo Stanfield and his crew are only too happy to falsely take credit and claim he was a coward who desperately tried to bribe them into sparing him. (In reality he was Defiant to the End towards his actual killers). Meanwhile the Baltimore underworld refuses to believe the mundane truth about Omar being shot in the back by a kid while buying cigarettes, apparently viewing it as too anticlimactic for a man who had been a street legend for decades and gone head to head with some of the most powerful and ruthless drug empires in Baltimore's history. Within days of his death the rumor mill is declaring that he was killed in an epic Last Stand against a whole group of heavily armed killers, or even assassinated by the police, who then made it look like he was killed by his fellow criminals.

Magazines

• In one "Production Notes" column in Doctor Who Magazine, Steven Moffat says that even the stories he made up are now totally unrecognisable to him, claiming that the last time he heard the one about Matt Smith's costume (that they were trying various costume options that didn't quite work, but Matt liked the bowtie look, despite everyone's doubts, and was right) it was something like "The Doctor was going to be a PIRATE! With ONE LEG!! And we actually SAWED MATT'S LEG OFF and NAILED A PARROT ON HIM!!! But he was REALLY UNHAPPY and he CRIED, and it was really LATE, and it was a DISASTER, and Matt was going to have to play the part NAKED, and then a MAGIC BOW TIE LANDED FROM SPACE!!!!!"

Music

• The 1962 song "Do You Hear What I Hear?", written by Noel Regney and Gloria Shayne, is told in the style of Chinese whispers, and describes how word of the birth of the baby Jesus is relayed to higher upon ever higher authority, starting with the "night wind", then "little lamb", then "shepherd boy", then "king", and finally "people everywhere".

Newspaper Comics

• One Bloom County strip (the one done in a vastly different art style) starts with Milo telling Binkley that Opus has tickets to Cats. The only thing subsequent retellings have in common is vaguely rhyming words ("Opus tickled by rats"; "Opus picked; too fat").
• In The Phantom, several stories have tags showing how one of the Phantom's feats grows in retelling and becomes part of the legend of The Ghost Who Walks. For instance, in one story, the villains attack the Phantom in a tank, which results in the jungle tribes spreading a story about the Phantom single-handedly defeating a fire-breathing dragon.

Radio

• In Open Letter on Race Hatred, a dramatization of the 1943 Detroit race riot, the news of a fight on Belle Isle Bridge becomes increasingly garbled as rumors spread, "one for black ears—one for white ears."
• In The BBC Radio 4 serial Gudrun, about a 10th century Icelandic woman, Gudrun is on pilgrimage to Rome when her infant son falls ill, and they stop at a nunnery. The baby is not expected to live, but is wrapped in a holy relic and recovers. In Rome, she's asked if it's true that the relic resurrected her child after he'd been dead for a week.

Theatre

• The Barber of Seville: The essence of Don Basilio's aria "La calunnia è un venticello" is that you don't even need to slander a lot, just start a small trickle of rumor and maybe give it a vague nudge a bit later, and the chain reaction of gossip will do the rest, elevating into huge explosion, making it for the victim easier just to lay down and die.
• In "The Smartphone Hour" from Be More Chill, school gossip Jenna Rolan and mean girls Chloe and Brooke all spread the news of what happened at the Halloween party the night before — that Rich set a fire in his friend's house (in an attempt to kill himself and take the evil supercomputer in his brain with him) — via text. But without the context of that last bit, the details get distorted, so the story goes from burning down the house to burning down the town and fleeing to Bombay.
• In "The Rumor" from Fiddler on the Roof, Yente brings the news that Perchik, who danced with Tevye's daughter Hodel, has been arrested in Kiev. The rumor spreads, and each time a different person is said to have been arrested. By the time the rumor comes full circle, this is what it has become: "Golde's been arrested, and Hodel's gone to Kiev. Motel studies dancing, and Tevye's acting strange. Shprintze has the measles, and Bielke has the mumps."
  Yente: And that's what comes of men and women dancing!
• In 13, the song "It Can't Be True" revolves around Lucy the Alpha Bitch spreading a rumor that the Brainless Beauty, Kendra, is cheating on her boyfriend with new kid Evan. Every time the rumor passes to a new person, Kendra and Evan are rumored to have gone a little farther around the bases
• Woe from Wit: A major plot point in the classic Russian play, where the protagonist's eccentricity and nonconformism is quickly exaggerated by gossip to ridiculous extremes. Chatsky is reputed to have joined a Freemason club, drunk champagne by the bucketful, and generally gone irreparably insane, with more and more incredible details being "discovered" every minute.
• The plot of the play Spreading the News.

Video Games

• In Baldur's Gate, after clearing the mines random NPCs will describe the PC's party as nine-foot tall superstrong and supermagical people. The player has the option to cop to being the heroes (they're not believed), or add that "I heard these heroes are handsome to boot."
• Dance Central: The news of the Dance Central club closing spread like wildfire. It's going to be closed so that it can be turned into the "first laser tag center exclusively for rich people", but by the time the dancers hear about this, the reason has been twisted into "a Christmas ornament warehouse" or maybe "a staple-gun test range" or possibly "a training facility for sharks" and so much more.
• Dragon Age:
  • Varric of Dragon Age II intentionally twists your story around, whether he's your best friend or your worst enemy. Eventually, you might hear that you managed to slay a High Dragon with a wooden spoon, while naked. It's hard to tell how much, if any of it, was exaggerated in re-tellings, though. The sheer amount of this present in the legend of Hawke, becoming more and more garbled in each retellings, means that by 9:40 Dragon, a mere three years after the events at the Gallows, the Seekers have been forced to go straight to the source; capturing Varric and forcing him to tell them the true story.
  • He does it for the first game too. Take the City Elf Origin where he describes how she joined the Wardens to fight for Elven rights. Righteous slaughter to keep yourself from getting raped is certainly one way to stand up for Elven rights, a good one, but Varric clearly thought along the lines of, "Nah, too Game of Thrones."
• Inverted in Final Fantasy VII, where Cloud insists that Sephiroth is "more powerful in reality than any story you've heard about him".
• Discussed in Final Fantasy XIV Heavensward, where Artoirel admits to assuming this trope about the Warrior of Light. Considering that by the time of the first expansion, you've fought no less than six Physical Gods, legions of Imperials (plus several legati), a weapon designed to consume the aforementioned Physical Gods, and an army of dragons (headed by a Dravanian champion the size of a tavern), not to mention plundered your way through every dark hole in Eorzea, escaped an assassination attempt by damn near every armed force in Ul'dah, and sabotaged a heretic impersonating one of the highest authorities in Ishgard... you can't exactly blame Artoirel for assuming exaggeration.
• In Fire Emblem Fates, the Nohrian border guard Benny is a quiet Gentle Giant with a huge Face of a Thug. However, there's a lot of tall-tales and rumors about his strength and fighting skills, making him somewhat Shrouded in Myth in-story.
  Avatar: "Well, now that you mention it... Have you ever defeated an army of 10,000 soldiers all by yourself? It seems unlikely, but... [...] I also heard that you once tossed a man so far into the sky that he never came down. [...] That...that you blew on a volcano to stop it from erupting... [...] That you forged an axe with your bare hands... [...] That you punched a bear in the face..."
• In Persona 5, the protagonist's criminal record (which is something he was actually framed for) is leaked to the students of Shujin Academy by resident local bully and Sadistic Teacher Suguru Kamoshida for no reason other than a "delinquent" not having any business in a prestigious school. Then the gossipy students begin adding more things to it for the sake of spreading Malicious Slander such as smoking, carrying a knife everywhere, having killed someone, doing drugs (a massive no-no in Japan, due to a fairly modern stigma surrounding narcotics), and... being an elephant tusk-trafficker... the hell?
• Tales of Berseria:
  • After Eizen sees an illusion of a woman used against him and after exchanging letters with said woman, the rest of the Player Party, starting with the women acting as Gossipy Hens, gossip about some kind of romantic drama he's involved in, when it turns out it's his sister.
  • Velvet being The Dreaded as 'The Daemon Lord of Calamity', there are persistant rumors amongst towns people that mix reality with fairy tails, or combine traits of different members of the Player Party.
• Tales of Symphonia: Late in the game, Colette finds herself pulling a not-particularly-convincing impersonation of the angel Spiritua, which mostly involves just hovering there and declaring that she'll totally kill those who oppose her but wait actually she won't because Zelos spares them. Shortly thereafter, you find that the rumors have swiftly exaggerated this into claims of a ten-foot-tall angel descending directly from heaven to devour the unworthy.

Webcomics

• Girl Genius does this often. Most notably in the aptly named chapter "Rumor Mill".
• This Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic shows how we got from 'love and tolerance'^note  Though the Alt Text claims 'God hates fatties' to 'God hates fags'.
• Terminal Lance gives readers the Marine version of the grapevine, "Lance Corporal Underground", complete with warping the actual message between its origin and final destination as a nod to the Norman Rockwell painting, and its sequel, "Lance Corporal Underground II", which references reporter Wolf Blitzer's coverage of the tunnels from Gaza to Israel.
• One Cyanide and Happiness strip combines this with If I Do Not Return. A soldier is fatally wounded and asks a squadmate to "tell my wife I love her"... then the squadmate gets mortally wounded as well and has to pass the message on to the next guy... this is implied to happen a few more times, and by the time the message finally gets to the first soldier's wife, her response is a puzzled, "What do you mean, 'Jim rubs birds'?"
• In Flintlocke's Guide to Azeroth, our heroes "sneak" into Horde territory, killing someone on the way. Once he respawns he shares his story about "five or six" alliance, which quickly evolves into "a dozen alliance guilds on a raid".
• Played for laughs in A Simple Thinking About Blood Type, where a minor character's admission that he now has a girlfriend who works as a kindergarten teacher somehow evolves into a nasty rumour that he is molesting kindergartenders, leading to his arrest.
• Questionable Content: The rumor mill of Cubetown quickly takes a technically true story about Claire ("I hear she had the head o' security shakin' in her boots" and "I hear she wasn't even spooked by the director") and turns her into an impressive Scary Librarian ("I heard she once shushed someone so hard they died," and "I heard she keeps the souls of her victims in a glass vial around her boyfriend's neck")
  Martin: It's less of a rumor mill and more of a rumor particle accelerator, huh.
• Everyday Heroes: One of the reasons Jane wants to tell her story is to prevent this, illustrated with an Imagine Spot of the truth "She's an ex-villain!" being distorted into "She's an axe villain!", "She's an axe murderer!" and "She's a tax auditor!", with the reactions becoming increasingly horrified at each stage.
• Housepets!: In one strip, the information that the police are searching for Marion is relayed between increasingly distrustful sources (in the same room) until he ends up being told that he's been framed for murder.

Web Original

• Homestar Runner: According to the Strong Bad Email "myths & legends", one of Strong Badia's national symbols, the Bear Holding a Shark, was created this way. Long ago, two of the "Seven Elemental Spirits of Strong Badia", the Fish Wearing a 'Fro Wig and the British Long-Distance Runner, teamed up against the other five spirits. It became the Bear-Plus-Shark we know today through "years of bad storytelling and the telephone game".
• In the Orange Islands arc of We Are All Pokémon Trainers, a Funny Background Event about Silent's Masquerain hunting a Sewaddle builds up into a story about an evil Pokémon that goes around eating Bug-type mons. Upon reaching the other side of the archipelago, the story is somehow about either a Grass-type fire-spitting monster, or a giant wooden monster, that ate an entire island of Pokémon and forced countless others to migrate. For added benefit, there are actual fire-spitting Grass Pokémon and wooden monsters completely unrelated to either news.
• Broken Picture Telephone (now defunct) and Drawception are two websites which allow visitors to participate in a version of this trope; Person A provides a statement, Person B has ten minutes to draw a depiction of said statement using the tools provided by the site, Person C describes the resulting picture, Person D draws their ten-minute interpretation of this statement, and so forth. Hilarity often ensues.
• In one story at NotAlwaysRight, a student accidentally locked himself in a supply room, only for a physics professor to break the door down. Over the next eight years, the story grew to the point where students thought he used math to break down a door and save a room full of students in a burning building.

Western Animation

• In The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 episode, "Mush-Rumors," a mushroom citizen sees a "Real World" family and assumes they are aliens. He warns Hip and Hop there are aliens about, and they in turn carry the rumor to Kastle Koopa, where it moves through the other Koopalings, eventually growing into a full-blown alien invasion. That same mushroom citizen tells various other people in town, with similar results.
• In the Avatar: The Last Airbender episode "The Great Divide", two feuding tribes each think that their ancestor was betrayed by the others' one hundred years ago. Aang, who was alive at that time, tells them that said ancestors had been simply playing a game together, and were siblings who got along great despite their differences. This allows the two tribes to reconcile and continue their journey together. This turns out to be an Invoked Trope, as Aang made up the story entirely - nobody involved had any real way of knowing what actually happened, so he decided to convince them that this trope had occurred and neither version of the story was accurate in order to get them to drop the issue.
• Batman: The Animated Series, "The Man Who Killed Batman": Harmless Villain Sidney "The Squid" Debris seems to have killed Batman. Even when Sid claims it was an Accidental Murder, being an Extreme Doormat, he just let the Mooks treat him as their hero. Mere hours after the explosion, Sid is called a mastermind at jail for being able to fool The Joker regarding Batman's fate. One day after that, Rupert Thorne, with true information about Sid being a Bumbling Sidekick, believes Sid is a Magnificent Bastard.
• In Disney's "Brave Little Tailor", Mickey's misadventures start when he brags about killing seven flies with one swipe, but the time the King hears about it, it has become "killing seven giants in one stroke".
• Captain Planet and the Planeteers: In "The Predator", when Ma-Ti is telling Gi about the shark in the beginning, he says it was scary to be followed by a 40-foot-long shark, even if it didn't attack him (and she claims it wouldn't have). One of the locals overhears it and spreads the news, claiming that a boy was attacked by a man-eating shark. Reports become increasingly exaggerated from there. This leads the entire town where they're vacationing to panic, letting Argos Bleak take advantage by offering to hunt and kill every shark in the area (whether or not they're even conceivably man-eaters) for a price.
• In Central Park, Season 1 "Garbage Ballet", after Molly's kiss with Brendan goes poorly because Brendan has a peanut allergy and she kissed him with peanut butter on her lips, a rumor starts going around her school about a girl who killed a boy from a different school with her peanut butter kiss. But lucky for her, they don't know it was her.
• The titular character from Doug has a rumor that goes from Vice Principal Bone putting out a "supernova" cherry bomb science project... to Doug's science project (a model of a volcano) blowing up the entire science lab. Doug even thinks he's going to go to jail for it.
• Garfield and Friends: The U.S. Acres short "The Return of Power Pig" has Sheldon telling Booker about a scary story he heard from Orson, and this eventually turns into a rumor about a monster loose on the farm, which leads to Orson changing to his "Power Pig" alter-ego and attacking a scarecrow. At the end of the episode, Orson says he's going for a walk in the country, which leads the others to believe he's going to a country, like Spain, and then they think he's moving to Spain forever. The episode's song is even about not starting rumors, because this trope runs the risk of happening.
• One episode of Handy Manny revolved entirely around this, replacing the "broken telephone" with a broken drive-thru speakerbox, which lead to spoken food orders winding up as completely mangled gibberish by the time they reached their destination.
• On Jimmy Two-Shoes, Lucius asks for Jimmy and Beezy to come to his office. This message gets passed onto several Misery Inc. workers before reaching Beezy, who tells Jimmy "Smell cheesy and bum to my crawfish". After a moment of confusion, it turns out that Beezy made that from scratch, then repeats the message perfectly.
• Done in King of the Hill's pilot episode which leads to the plot. A couple of women spot Hank's anger with Buckley and his son with a black eye (caused by a swung baseball) at the Mega-Lo-Mart. The gossip is spread to other women thinking he's an abusive father and assaults clerks and inform child protective services.
• Looney Tunes: The news that Sylvester the Cat has inherited a fortune ("Heir Conditioned") is passed on from alley to alley by a series of cats. By time it reaches the final cat, the inheritance has inflated from a simple fortune to five million dollars.
• In a story on PB&J Otter, Flick panics when his Mama Duck tells him that his cousin Billy is coming for a visit, because he remembers Flick as a bully who once sat on him for "like, four minutes" when he was really little. As the tale spreads, it ends up becoming "four months" and everyone panics about Billy being such a bully. As it turns out, Flick's memory is faulty, so even his account was exaggerated. Back when Flick was really young, he insisted that Billy ride him piggyback, even though Billy didn't think it was such a good idea. Billy accidentally squashed him for maybe two seconds at most.
• The 1944 Private Snafu short Rumors begins with Snafu being informed that it looks like a good day for a bombing, taking this to mean that they're about to get bombed, and spreading to others who in turn spread it until it becomes a rumor that they're about to lose the war. (In a nice touch of visual metaphor, the passage of the rumors is represented by baloney flying out of people's mouths.)
  Narrator: That's right, exaggerate it! Stretch it! Multiply it! Now shoot off your face, and baloney is flying all over the place!
• Recess: In "The Shiner", T.J. shows up to school with a black eye, but refuses to tell anyone how he got it. The whole school is abuzz with theories about what caused it, making him into a hero. These rumors include such elements as saving a nursing school, busting a holdup, saving a platoon, swimming through shark-infested waters, and quelling a kindergartener uprising. When finally asked to tell the story in front of the whole school, T.J. comes clean: He got it from square-dancing.
• Sea Princesses: In "Rumours", Bia sends a note to the princesses telling them she's coming to visit. They're delighted but Marli and Vivi are not. They've heard that Bia from the Abysmal Kingdom is a strange creature with six tentacles who walks weirdly.
• The Simpsons
  • In the episode "Grade School Confidential", Principal Skinner and Mrs. Krabappel are caught kissing in a closet. The event undergoes gossip evolution as each child tells their parents:
    Milhouse: ...and then Bart opened the door and Principal Skinner and Mrs. Krabappel were kissing — and swearing!
    
    Pahusacheta: Father! Uncle Apu! A teacher was in the closet with the principal and he had as many arms as Vishnu and they were all very busy.
    
    Lisa: I was in the library at the time, but Janey told me that Principal Skinner and Bart's teacher, Mrs. — what's her name?
    Marge: Krabappel?
    Lisa: Yeah, Krabappel. They were naked in the closet together.
    Marge: Oh, my goodness.
    
    Ralph: Mrs. Krabappel and Principal Skinner were in the closet making babies and I saw one of the babies and the baby looked at me.
  • Another (particularly hilarious) example is in "The PTA Disbands", where Bart tries to prolong the teachers' strike by spreading the rumor that Skinner has been saying that the teachers will crack any day now. By the time it reaches Ms. Krabappel, it is entirely unchanged... except it incongruously includes the words "purple monkey dishwasher" at the end. Mrs. K vows that they'll show Skinner, "especially for that purple monkey dishwasher remark!" The words "Purple Monkey Dishwasher" have even become somewhat of a meme.
  • Yet another example is in "The War of the Simpsons": After Homer catches and releases the legendary catfish General Sherman, we hear the resulting rumor.
    "Went by the name of Homer. Seven feet tall he was, with arms like tree trunks. His eyes were like steel: cold, hard. Had a shock of hair, red, like the fires of Hell."
• In The Smurfs (2021) episode "Where's Papa Smurf", Brainy saying that Papa Smurf disappeared is misheard by another Smurf as Papa Smurf "smurfed his beard", then it gets misheard as another thing, and so on until the whole village believes that Papa Smurf has left the village and that they can abandon their chores to play games.
• Star Wars Resistance: In "The Recruit", Literal-Minded Neeku Vozo hears the tail end of Kazuda Xiono talking about how he imagined himself as the greatest pilot in the galaxy, and misinterprets it as Kaz claiming he is the greatest pilot in the galaxy. The news spreads very quickly across the Colossus, and by the time Kaz and Poe Dameron make it to Aunt Z's Tavern, everyone's talking about him and he has an entire fabricated history of races.
• Thomas & Friends In "Thomas and the New Engine", Thomas sees a new engine named Neville at the Scrap Yards with 'Arry and Bert. He doesn't realize that the diesels are bullying Neville at first, so he believes him to be friends with them. When he tells James that he saw Neville with 'Arry and Bert, James tells Edward that Neville is friends with 'Arry and Bert. Edward then tells Percy that Neville doesn't like steam engines, Percy tells Emily that 'Arry and Bert told Neville to biff into steam engines, and Emily tells Neville that she knows about his plan to biff into all of the steam engines. Thomas overhears, and asks Emily where she heard that. Emily tells Thomas that he was one who started the gossip in the first place. Thomas soon explains to her that he told James that he'd only seen Neville with 'Arry and Bert, and Toby clears things up by explaining that Henry saw 'Arry and Bert bullying Neville.
• One VeggieTales movie features a "Rumor Weed" who thrives on spreading malicious gossip, resulting in one character making a joke about having to "recharge his batteries" when he's tired and the whole town eventually believing that he's a Killer Robot.

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Why was my name the only thing they got right?