So You've Been Publicly Shamed

One bad tweet, one misheard joke — and your life can be over before you land.

A Normal Life, Gone in Hours

The stories of online shaming in this book really shock me to the core.

Before boarding a flight to Africa, a woman makes a not-very-tasteful joke about AIDS to her 170 followers. On arrival in Africa she is the most hated person alive — with people waiting at the airport to document her reaction when she turns on her phone and sees the shitstorm she has unintentionally started.

Two friends joke between themselves about "big" dongles on the 10th row of a tech conference. A person in front of them is not as amused by the jokes, posts a picture of them online. A few minutes later they are both out of a job — and just at the starting point of the shit show to come.

To me the most frightening aspect of online shaming is the speed at which someone can go from living a normal life to being totally annihilated — socially, professionally, and privately.

The Mechanics of Mob Justice

Your explanation or apology will never get the attention the original mistake or misjudgment did. Forever alone.

There are now companies that offer "reputation clean-ups" on the web. As Ronson puts it: "What the first page looks like determines what people think of you." A whole industry sprung up when cyberbullying and revenge porn became a thing in the mid-2000s.

"The snowflake never needs to be responsible for the avalanche."

And nobody went after the people who were being truly inappropriate in how they were destroying these lives. People were too busy shaming. One particularly vile response to the AIDS joke tweet read: "Somebody (HIV+) must rape this bitch and we'll see if her skin colour protects her from AIDS." Nobody went after that person.

Shame Follows Cultural Norms

One observation that stuck with me: shaming comments follow cultural and gender norms. Men get "I'm going to get you fired" — because men are expected to be employed. Women get "I'm going to rape you" — because the highest perceived degradation of a woman is sexual violence. A bit uneven punishment, maybe? 🤔

A common theme for the worst and most murderous criminals is that they've been horribly abused. The shame has deadened their souls.

📺 Video Review

The Power of Refusing Shame

There's a fascinating chapter on Max Mosley — how did he walk away from his shaming unaffected? He thinks it's because he simply refused to be ashamed. As he puts it: "As soon as the victim steps out of the pact by refusing to be ashamed, the whole thing crumbles." Does the shaming only work if the shamee plays their part and feels ashamed?

Brad Blanton, author of Radical Honesty, makes a similar case. There's a whole chapter dedicated to one of his Radical Honesty group therapy sessions — and it's pretty crazy. Someone's secret? "I killed a person by mistake and never reported it." Blanton argues that shame internalized can lead to agony, whereas shame let out can lead to freedom — or at least a funny story, which is a sort of freedom too.

The Crowd Never Changes

Gustave Le Bon wrote back in 1895 in his book The Crowd about the madness of crowd mentality: "A crowd is only impressed by excessive sentiments. Exaggerate, affirm, resort to repetition, and never attempt to prove anything by reasoning." Fits certain modern tactics pretty well.

"We see ourselves as non-conformists, but I think all of this is creating a more conformist, conservative age. We are defining the boundaries of normality by tearing apart people outside it."