So You've Been Publicly Shamed - Jon Ronson

[goodreads]

Title: So You've Been Publicly Shamed
Author: Jon Ronson
Genre: Non-fiction
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 306
Date read: December 2015

For the past three years, Jon Ronson has been immersing himself in the world of modern-day public shaming - meeting famous shamees, shamers, and bystanders who have been impacted. This is the perfect time for a modern-day Scarlet Letter - a radically empathetic book about public shaming, and about shaming as a form of social control. It has become such a big part of our lives it has begun to feel weird and empty when there isn't anyone to be furious about. Whole careers are being ruined by one mistake. A transgression is revealed. Our collective outrage at it has the force of a hurricane. Then we all quickly forget about it and move on to the next one, and it doesn't cross our minds to wonder if the shamed person is okay or in ruins. What's it doing to them? What's it doing to us?

Ronson's book is a powerful, funny, unique, and very humane dispatch from the frontline, in the escalating war on human nature and its flaws.


I read this in two sittings. It's ridiculously readable and impossible to put down. Jon Ronson focuses on a fascinating and troubling subject: the lynch-happy mob mentality that's so prevalant online. Fortunately I've never had it pointed towards me, but I've seen it often enough, and it's terrifying how evil some of the people calling others out for their mistakes can be.

I'm pretty sure that most of the people who make up the mob aren't usually trolls, nor do they really think much about the consequences of their actions - they're just caught up in a righteous thrill, and forget that even though their shaming/attacking is "just" online, there's still a very real person on the other side.

It's a book to make you lose just a bit of faith in humanity, and to remind you that the internet is forever.