a book
So You've Been Publicly Shamed
Jon Ronson · 2015 · 290 pages
Now a New York Times bestseller and from the 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.
recommended by 8 people
sourced from public statements
Ryan Holiday
“An exploration of online controversies and their human cost, examining how media and culture enable the gleeful destruction of individuals caught in digital backlash.”↗
Natalie Wynn (Contrapoints)
“As Jon Ronson, author of a great book on public shaming put it, "I suppose that when shamings are delivered "like remotely administers drone strikes nobody needs "to think about how ferocious our collective power might be. "The snowflake never needs "to feel responsible for the avalanche." And that's how you get these situations where you have hundreds of people endlessly bashing someone who's already been knocked to the ground, and feeling all the while like they're punching up.”
Geoffrey Miller
“@ScottAdamsSays Relatedly, I can highly recommend the @jonronson book 'So you've been publicly shamed'”↗
Daniël Lakens
“As we are on this topic, one book that changed my action on social media more than any other was reading Jon Ronson's "So You've Been Publicly Shamed" - highly recommended - if you have any other recommendations, would love to hear them.”↗
Max Rushden
“fascinating, open & honest. I've said this before - but I recommend @jonronson's book - "So You've Been Publicly Shamed" - on the often seismic difference between someone's mistakes and the impact on their lives...and our increasing inability to forgive.👍❤️”↗
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