Name: Matthew Jackson's review of So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson
Item: So You've Been Publicly Shamed
Rating: 5
Author: Matthew Jackson

Jon Ronson

"From the author of The Psychopath Test and Lost at Sea, an exploration of shame, one of our world's most overlooked forces. Public shaming as a form of social control, such a big part of our lives it feels weird when there isn't anyone to be furious about. Whole careers are being ruined by one mistake. 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? An examination of human nature and its flaws"--Publisher's website.

So You've Been Publicly Shamed

Matthew Jackson

An internationally best-selling author explores the war on human nature and its flaws by immersing himself in the world of modern-day public shaming—meeting famous shames, shamers and bystanders who have been impacted and whose careers and lives have been ruined by one mistake. By the best-selling author of The Psychopath Test andLost at Sea.

Gavin

Investigation of what angry people are doing to jokers and liars and fools, generally on the internet, generally on political grounds. We send them death threats, we photoshop them into animal porn, we doxx them, we get them fired. If Ronson's shock and remorse at being part of this could spread, the most distinctive depressing part of modern life would evaporate. 

There is only one representative of the online shamers here (besides Ronson, who is reformed). You realise quickly that she is not especially hateful: she's just dim – she still thinks shaming is great, even after suffering it horribly and losing her job as a result of her own aggressive humourlessness and insensitivity. In her interview with Ronson, she shows no signs of empathy or learning. It is a tragic example of how addling identity can be.

One essential passage - the payload inamongst Ronson's ordinariness and self-deprecation: a human-rights lawyer points out the emotional power of noncriminal acts:

  “Let me ask you three questions,” he said. “And then you’ll see it my way. Question One: What’s the worst thing that you have ever done to someone? It’s okay. You don’t have to confess it out loud. Question Two: What’s the worst criminal act that has ever been committed against you? Question Three: Which of the two was the most damaging for the victim?”

The worst criminal act that has ever been committed against me was burglary. How damaging was it? Hardly damaging at all. I felt theoretically violated at the idea of a stranger wandering through my house. But I got the insurance money. I was mugged one time. I was eighteen. The man who mugged me was an alcoholic. He saw me coming out of a supermarket. “Give me your alcohol,” he yelled. He punched me in the face, grabbed my groceries, and ran away. There wasn’t any alcohol in my bag. I was upset for a few weeks, but it passed.

And what was the worst thing I had ever done to someone? It was a terrible thing. It was devastating for them. It wasn’t against the law.

Clive’s point was that the criminal justice system is supposed to repair harm, but most prisoners — young, black — have been incarcerated for acts far less emotionally damaging than the injuries we noncriminals perpetrate upon one another all the time — bad husbands, bad wives, ruthless bosses, bullies, bankers.


(It has been claimed that this phase of internet social justice is on its way out - that the tactic is now to "call in"- that is, to correct an offender, but also to appeal to the offender's humanity, to try to bridge the gap. We can hope this will gain traction (3 years and counting...). In the meantime a roaring subculture has been founded upon the glorification of bad behaviour and utterly unpersuasive flames.)

Ronson's possible solutions to finding yourself shamed: you can 1) refuse to feel bad (or at least refuse to show them you're bleeding), own the thing they're trying to shame you for, like Max Mosley. This only works sometimes. 2) You can hide from the internet, try to SEO the affair down to Google page 3, where no-one goes, like someone it would be counterproductive to name. 3) You can start over, asking for forgiveness like Jonah Lehrer. (There is none; the internet is not interested in you improving your behaviour.)


[Theory #3, Values #1]

Beau

An alarming look at the power of the crowd, our preoccupation with schadenfreude (even when we think it's casual), and, as always, an eye opening investigation into the power and chaos the Internet gives over to the user when we reach for our computers/phones. This book made me re-think how I respond to the witch-hunts of the modern day (the Zuckerbergs of the world et al when we think about 2018) and challenged me to consider my own actions/involvement in such seasons.

In 2012, Jon Ronson's online identity was stolen. Jon publicly confronted the imposters, a trio of academics who had created a Jon Ronson Twitter bot obsessed by unlikely food combinations and weird sex. At first, Jon was delighted to find strangers all over the world uniting to support him in his outrage. The wrongdoers were quickly shamed into stopping. But then things got out of hand. This encounter prompted Jon to explore the phenomenon of public shaming and what he discovered astonished him. As he meets famous shamers and shamees, Jon learns just how quickly public ridicule, often delivered from anonymous or distant sources, can devastate its victim. After our collective fury has raged with the force of a hurricane, we forget about it and move on, and it doesn't cross our minds to wonder what we've done. How big a transgression really justifies someone losing their job? What about the people who become global targets for doing nothing more than making a bad joke on Twitter, do they deserve to have their lives ruined? How is this renaissance of shaming changing the world and what is the true reason behind it? Simultaneously powerful and hilarious in the way only Jon Ronson can be, So You've Been Publicly Shamed is a deeply honest book about modern life, full of eye-opening truths about the escalating war on human flaws - and our very scary part in it.

Charlotte Dann

This book shook me, so it's taken a bit of time to get my thoughts together about it.

I decided about 2 years ago that I consider shame the worst human emotion, it seems much more hurtful and uncontrollable than worry, fear, even despair to me. Since then I've been repulsed by it, anger instantly boils up when I see shaming happen to even the worst kind of people, so this book had me in near-constant flux between a deep sadness for the world and a fury at many of the people in it, neither particularly productive reactions.

Ronson's writing is a delight, he weaves together these story arcs delicately and without any firm judgement. I thought I'd get annoyed that he'd lean too heavily one way or the other but his commentary remains open and curious, deftly so.

Honestly though, the primary reason this book captured me so intensely is that a few years ago I became embroiled in (and sat anonymously adjacent to) a public shaming scandal. While I've long made my peace with it and with those involved, I still harbour a great shame (irony!) for my actions and their consequences... reliving similar situations in this book felt like high voltage through my veins, and the alternate reality where Jon Ronson spends a hundred pages writing about the nuances of my incident didn't feel so far afield. And that's why I've put off reading this for so long despite genuinely wanting to, I've been afraid to confront those feelings again, but I'm firmly glad-and a little proud-that I did.

This book does a fantastic job of describing what public shaming feels like for the 0.001% of participants that actually have to endure it. I suspect the world (but mostly the social internet) would be a much kinder and more pleasant place if the other 99.999% read this book.

Savindi Jinasena

Midori Kobayashi

3.5/5stars


There is nothing I dislike more in the world than people who care more about ideology than they do about people.

Definitely an interesting read. Just that it is very old and so much has happened since this book came out (in 2015, I believe?) that I really need to see a part 2 of this asap!

Taylor

Extremely self-absorbed writing that is in no way compelling. 

Exhibit A (a real sentence from this real published book): 
“My joke was funnier than Justine’s joke. It was better worded. Plus, as it didn’t invoke AIDS sufferers, it was less unpleasant. So mine was funnier, better worded, and less unpleasant.”

Between this type of narcissistic, repetitive garbage, name-dropping, and a complete lack of any insight, this book was pretty insufferable.

In the tradition of radical honesty: I resent that this dude keeps making money off of long-form essays that are about literally nothing except himself.

Belle

A mixture of fascinating stories (the car crash kind—horrible, but gripping) and more serious pondering on the usefulness—or not—of shame. I found it really interesting and very easy to read.

Aleksandra

Maggie Gordon

I've been looking forward to reading "So You've Been Publicly Shamed" for a while as the toxicity of call-out culture and what to do about it has long been an interest of mine. Unfortunately, this book wasn't a particularly insightful or even a well-researched expose on the concept of public shaming. 

First of all, this is very pop sociology. I mean, I should have expected that, but as an academic it was grating to see unsubstantiated ideas getting a lot of play. Ronson wanders fairly aimlessly in many directions, trying to learn as much as he can about shaming. However, it doesn't really come together into a cohesive whole, nor do several of his meanderings. Some of them, like the odd chapter at the self-help group about embracing radical honesty, seemed to have no value at all. It's all unfounded opinions and conjecture. Not the most educational of readers :l

Second, while I do think that public shaming can often be taken to extremes, Ronson didn't feel very objective in his presentations on the different people who had been shamed. He was very sympathetic towards Justine Sacco, stating several times that she never did anything wrong. I thought her public humiliation was far too extreme, but that doesn't mean she engaged in anything but a harmless joke. In trying to ensure that readers understood his subjects were people, Ronson neglected to really get into why their actions were problematic and hurtful. The focus was so much on the shaming without understanding why public shaming is being used. Without understanding the why, his attempts at trying to figure out how to fix things don't go anywhere. 

So, what could have been a really interesting and valuable exploration of a modern phenomena ended up being rather banal and pointless. Ronson comes to few conclusions other than to remind readers that those who are shamed are real people, but that could have been done in an article rather than an almost 300 page book.

Augusta

Read this because it’s a book Harry Styles has been seen reading. Sorry bestie but you have horrible taste in literature!! The beginning was interesting but it just dragged on and on and on. Would not recommend unless you want to hear about the perils and misfortunes being a white male entails. Love you Harry, but wowza.

Fraser Simons

Very interesting. Crowd psychology has always fascinated me but the dynamics on social media—especially on Twitter—is even more interesting to me because you can hardly spend any time on it at all without seeing shaming happening. Sometimes people are in the right and it’s the only kind of Justice that can be obtained, other times it’s just the algorithm feeding you information it knows will incense you, and the fallout is a disaster without any accountability, ironically. 

This book does a good job of have a through line narrative and peppering in data and anecdotes and interviews to explore mob psychology online within a narrow framework. It’s hardly comprehensive or definitive, but in so far as getting a few perspectives it is useful and, as mentioned, very interesting (for me).

Sarah Marchant

This book was good, but I feel like it couldn't decide what it wanted to be. It was a history of public shaming, a look at shaming vs. non-shaming in various modern contexts, psychological insight as to how shame affects people, case studies of shamees (and shamers) before and after a public shaming, and even some social commentary/feminist thought sprinkled in.

Here is just a snapshot: it manages to fit the Stanford prison experiment, a porn filming, Justine Sacco, and a courtroom familiarization course with mock cross-examination into the same shaming narrative. Think of it as one long rambling editorial, wanting to cover all the ground it could. Anything even vaguely relevant is fair game.

I did like it, but the synopsis led me to believe that it was going to be solely case studies, and that's not what I got.

Ana Cob

It's incredible how fast things go on the internet. Even what I was reading about, which happened only four year ago, felt so dated. Crazy! So much has developed since. I am thinking mostly of the endless short blogs posts analyzing internet responses to news, or people. For example, I have seen so many posts about why and how people love and hate Greta Thunberg... Bur not so many actually loving OR hating her. It's fascinating and it makes me want to crawl into a cave.

Shafel McDowall

This book was interesting. Technically I gave it a 3.5 rating but I rounded it up to 4 stars. The problem I had with this book was the pacing, I felt like the book could be shorter even though it was already short.

It had really interesting topics that had never crossed my mind, for example, "What happens to people after they've been dragged online?"

Sarah Vaughan

*I was given an advanced readers copy of this book by Riverhead Books via GoodReads First Reads.*

Absolutely one of my all-time favorite non-fiction books. I've never heard of Jon Ronson before reading "So You've Been Publicly Shamed," but now I plan on reading all of his work. 

I didn't really know what to expect when I entered this giveaway. I was curious to find out how people who had apparently been publicly shamed dealt with their situations. I never thought this book would end up becoming a case study very similar to those I spent hours having to pour over throughout my college career. As a journalist, I was interested in Ronson's investigations - or inquiries rather - into how plagiarists Stephen Glass and Jonah Lehrer responded to their subsequent shunning from journalistic society. How does one go about attaining a new job as a writer after anyone and everyone in the journalism world knows you lied...multiple times. And also, what does it say about us that we spend so much time obsessing over it when we've undoubtedly all lied at some point in our lives, even if it wasn't for "The New Yorker." 

I didn't expect to feel any remorse or guilt as a result of reading this, but wow, Ronson definitely hit me where it hurt. I was only one of millions who had something to say about Justine Sacco's unfortunate tweet about her visit to Africa in which she hoped she didn't get AIDS, but she's just kidding, because she's white. I remember being a young journalism grad who had studied PR as part of my curriculum and thinking that only an idiot could be a member of a PR team and say something so blatantly stupid. Then I realized she only had 170 followers and a history of having a very dry sense of humor before the tweet went viral. I'm not saying what she did was smart, but I'm also willing to admit I've shared worse on social media before. Luckily, no one cares what I say and none of it ever went public. 

The moral here is that we as social media users, and really, as people in general, seem to think life is all about us. When we take the time to shame and degrade other people, do we do it because we honestly think we're helping them or the world become a better place with better people. No. We do it because it makes us feel better to think someone will always be dumber, more racist, more sexist, etc. than we are, and as Ronson pointed out, it's pretty messed up. After reading, you'll be sure to think twice before pressing send on that next tweet.

From the Sunday Times top ten bestselling author of The Psychopath Test, a captivating and brilliant exploration of one of our world's most under-appreciated forces: shame."superb and terrifying" The Guardian'It's about the terror, isn't it?''The terror of what?' I said.'The terror of being found out.'For the past three years, Jon Ronson has travelled the world meeting recipients of high-profile public shamings. The shamed are people like us - people who, say, made a joke on social media that came out badly, or made a mistake at work. Once their transgression is revealed, collective outrage circles with the force of a hurricane and the next thing they know they're being torn apart by an angry mob, jeered at, demonized, sometimes even fired from their job.A great renaissance of public shaming is sweeping our land. Justice has been democratized. The silent majority are getting a voice. But what are we doing with our voice? We are mercilessly finding people's faults. We are defining the boundaries of normality by ruining the lives of those outside it. We are using shame as a form of social control.PRAISE FOR SO YOU'VE BEEN PUBLICLY SHAMED"Immensely readable" The Independent"A work of original, inspired journalism" Financial Times"A magnificent book, subtly argued, often painfully funny and yet deeply serious ... I'm not sure I can recommend it highly enough" Daily Mail"The book slowly turns out to be something bigger than it seems: a survival guide to living with shame both public and private, an inevitable consequence of being human" Saturday Paper

Libby

This should be mandatory reading for anyone planning on using social media

Pranav Mutatkar

I expected much more from Ronson and a book about this subject. Maybe Ronson tends to be better with short form stuff this kinda peels over on itself with the repetition and the circularity.

Thea

"The word 'forever' had been coming up a lot during my two years amongst the publicly shamed. Jonah (Lehrer) and Justine (Sacco) and people like them were being told, 'No. There is no door. There is no way back in. We don't offer any forgiveness.' But we know that people are complicated and have a mixture of flaws and talents and sins. So why do we pretend that we don't?" 

Equally fascinating and terrifying. 4 stars:)

Natalie Sypeck 

There were parts of this book that I really enjoyed, and I learned a few things which is what one wants when reading a non-fiction book. On the other-hand, it wasn't exactly what I had expected, for one thing, it wasn't as humorous as I thought it would be (i've never read a book by this author before, so it's not like i'm basing this expectation on his past works), but I saw the word "funny" in the quote on the cover of the book, so I just assumed. I definitely didn't want this book to be one big joke, but a line to make me life here and there was something I was looking for. I also thought a couple of the stories dragged a little, I found myself losing interest in the people he was talking about, I also sometimes felt he jumped around a bit too much and I found myself having to figure out who he was talking to. I'm still not sure how I feel about the Afterwards (final chapter), it felt a bit -woe is me- but it also had some points I liked. My favorite part was when they talked about murders and the prison system, how shame and humiliation plays its part, I definitely want to look more into this. Over all I'm glad I read the book and took away some interesting point.

From the Sunday Times top ten bestselling author of The Psychopath Test, a captivating and brilliant exploration of one of our world's most underappreciated forces: shame. 'It's about the terror, isn't it?' 'The terror of what?' I said. 'The terror of being found out.' For the past three years, Jon Ronson has travelled the world meeting recipients of high-profile public shamings. The shamed are people like us - people who, say, made a joke on social media that came out badly, or made a mistake at work. Once their transgression is revealed, collective outrage circles with the force of a hurricane and the next thing they know they're being torn apart by an angry mob, jeered at, demonized, sometimes even fired from their job. A great renaissance of public shaming is sweeping our land. Justice has been democratized. The silent majority are getting a voice. But what are we doing with our voice? We are mercilessly finding people's faults. We are defining the boundaries of normality by ruining the lives of those outside it. We are using shame as a form of social control. Simultaneously powerful and hilarious in the way only Jon Ronson can be, So You've Been Publicly Shamed is a deeply honest book about modern life, full of eye-opening truths about the escalating war on human flaws - and the very scary part we all play in it.

Katherine

This was really enjoyable to read and the interviews were really engaging, but I don't quite feel like it answered some of the central questions it was asking. That being said I'd probably still recommend it!

Olivera Mitić

Lewis John Fisher

This book should be mandatory reading for anyone wishing to engage with social media and the discourse that follows, especially with the overwhelming shift that our online cultures have taken towards cancelation and shaming.

Eya Brahem

This book is SOOO incredibly thought-provoking. I can't wait to reread it.

Danica Holdaway

Fascinating must-read for anyone in the social media world. Ronson explores the implications of public shaming and anonymity online. He interviews different people who have been publicly shamed, and goes through the process with them, analyzing how people deal with it - or don't. 

He's annoying to me, and I felt like I was left wanting in the end - so... what does this mean? But he does a really good job of looking at the concept of shaming from a lot of different angles (including the porn industry just FYI). I wish he'd been a little more thorough about what works, what doesn't work, what we should or shouldn't be doing, etc. Mostly what I took away from this is that public shaming is bad and should stop, but I think most people already knew that? 

Still, fascinating read that lends a lot of new perspective to the world of Twitter, Reddit, and other social platforms, as well as the way we judge and punish others.

Matthew Jackson &
So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

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