Talk:Ponyville Confidential/@comment-25765540-20141126041638/@comment-32136229-20141126081328

Indeed, the ponies were pretty hypocritical about it. However, I believe that was intentional on the writers' part. Here, let me explain.

In addition to the CMC plot, there's also the Mane 6 subplot, which I think serves to show the readers' side of the story. The spa scene shows that all the Mane 6 except Twilight are enjoying the gossips that Gabby Gums has put out for the public. When Twilight points out how she can be a little mean and doesn't value anypony's privacy. However, the others disagree with her, saying things like "[Gabby Gums]'s a hoot" and "there's nothing but harmless gossip", and continues to enjoy the column.

Let's just say they got their karma. The Sugarcube Corner scene shows that they don't enjoy gossips when they involve themselves. Their characterizations here serve as a representation of Gabby Gums' readership, showing their hypocrisy when it comes to how they view gossips.

Plus, there's also this little line from the Crusaders' apology to the Ponyville citizens:

"'As the popularity of our column grew, we got swept up in the hype. We knew that what we were doing didn't feel quite right, but we ignored the guilt because 'everypony seemed to want to read what we were writing."''

With this line, I don't feel that the episode put the blame completely on the CMC, but also a certain degree of blame on the readers for making their column popular in the first place yet dislike it when it involves themselves, basically but subtly calling out on their hypocrisy.

This is why I think that the townsponies' hypocrisy was deliberate on the writers' part, possibly to serve as sort of a social commentary on society and gossips, though I'm not exactly sure if hypocrisy when it comes to gossips is that prevalent in our society. Either way, my point still stands.