- So you've been publicly shamed. Jon Ronson. An examination of public shaming online, studying several individual cases with far-reaching (often tragic) consequences and different attempts to understand the mob mentality associated with the phenomenon. Includes different interviews and personal confessions from the author about his own experiences --on both sides of the conflict.
So many cases seem vindictive or at least amusing --somebody says or does something online and people pile on them. In many cases it surely feels like social justice --shame on these people for being bad. But the more cases are examined in this book, the more it starts becoming obvious that a lot of it has very little to do with justice and a lot to do with a collective desire for blood, be it literal or metaphorical. And always fundamentally cruel. And always self-righteous --how many people insist they did nothing wrong or that they were "just saying" after too much damage has been inflicted?
Assorted attempts to find a solution seem to be dead-ends. In theory, it is possible for an individual to simply not let public shaming get to them. In practice pretty much the only people who got away unscathed are those whose transgressions are things that world society really doesn't care about. Those who kept a strong facade were nevertheless nothing short of traumatized by the experience.
Then, the punishment tends to be out of proportion: Women and minorities who are shamed online tend to have it much worse. And keep in mind that cases involving men (and yes, cis straight white men) being shamed have ended in them committing suicide. With, of course, people immediately claiming that they had nothing to do with it OR turning against a new victim (usually the one to first call them out, preferably, again, a woman or a minority).
Yet this book isn't simply a string of horror tales, nor is it a self-help book that urges you to be good online. If it's anything, it's a close study of a fascinating and rather alarming phenomena (that is not unique to our times --the book also draws an interesting connection between this and public punishments in previous centuries). Author Ronson himself observes that: "The great thing about social media was how it gave a voice to voiceless people. Let's not turn it into a world where the smartest way to survive is to go back to being voiceless".
In short, a thought-provoking, and perhaps quite necessary book.
