So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed – March 29, 2016

So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed Paperback – March 29, 2016
Author: Visit ‘s Jon Ronson Page ID: 1594634017

.com Review

An Best Book of April 2015: Author Jon Ronson knows a thing or two about public shaming. When a trio of “academics” hijacked his persona for an infomorphbasically an automated Twitter feed that spewed inane comments about food in his namehe took the fight to the internet, where the virtual, virulent hordes soon compelled the spambot authors to cease and desist. The experience hatched a thought: Once upon a time, if you wanted to participate in a good, old-fashioned public humiliation, you actually had to show up. But as with most everything else, the internet has made condemnation an exercise in crowdsourcing, with todays angry mobs trading stockades and scarlet As for social media and its inherent anonymity.

So Youve Been Publicly Shamed is Ronson’s tour through a not-necessarily-brave new world where faceless commenters wield the power to destroy lives and careers, where the punishments often outweigh the crimes, and where there is no self-control and (ironically) no consequences. On one hand, part of what makes this book (again, ironically) so fun to read is a certain schadenfreude; its fun to read about others’ misfortunes, especially if we think they “had it coming.” Jonah Lehrer, whose admitted plagiarism and falsifications probably earned him his fall, stalks these pages. But so does Justine Sacco, whose ill-conceived tweet probably didnt merit hers; as it turns out, the internet doesnt always differentiate the misdemeanors from the felonies. But the best reason to read this is Ronson’s style, which is funny and brisk, yet informative and never condescending. So Youve Been Publicly Shamed is not a scholarly book, nor is it a workbook about navigating ignominy. It’s an entertaining investigation into a growing–and often disturbing–demimonde of uncharitable impulses run amok. –Jon Foro

–This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

“Gutsy and smart. Without losing any of the clever agility that makes his books so winning, he has taken on truly consequential material and risen to the challenge….fascinating…shocking…Mr. Ronson’s gift for detail-picking is, as ever, a treat.” –The New York Times

“A sharp-eyed and often hilarious book…Jon Ronson has written a fresh, big-hearted take on an important and timely topic. He has nothing to be ashamed of.” –NPR.org
 
“A diligent investigator and a wry, funny writer, Ronson manages to be at once academic and entertaining.” –The Boston Globe

“This is a wonderful book.” –Jon Stewart 
 
“This book really needed to be written.” –Salon.com

“With an introspective and often funny lens, [Ronson] tracks down those whose blunders have exploded in the public eye…So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed is an insightful, well-researched, and important text about how we react to others’ poor decisions.” –The Huffington Post
 
“Personable and empathetic, Ronson is an entertaining guide to the odd corners of the shame-o-sphere.” –The Minneapolis Star Tribune

 
“It’s sharply observed, amusingly told, and, while its conclusions may stop just short of profound, the true pleasure of the book lies in arriving at those conclusions.”
 –The Onion

“Like all of Ronson’s books, this one is hard to put down, but you will absolutely do so at some point to Google yourself.” –TheMillions.com

“An irresistibly gossipy cocktail with a chaser of guilt.” –Newsday
 
“With So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed Ronson has written a timely, interesting and titillating read for any Internet drama junkie.” –PopMatters.com

“[A] simultaneously lightweight and necessary book.” –Esquire

“A work of original, inspired journalism.”  –The Financial Times

“[So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed] is both entertaining and fair — a balance we could use a lot more of, online and off.”  –Vulture

“Ronson is an entertaining and provocative writer, with a broad reach …[So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed] is a well-reported, entertainingly written account of an important subject.” –The Oregonian

“Ronson is a fun writer to read…fascinating.” –Fast Company
“I was mesmerized. And I was also disturbed.”  –Forbes

“[So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed] promises to be the most relevant book of the year.” –FlavorWire

“I was sickly fascinated by the book. I think it’s Ronson’s best book.” –Mark Frauenfelder for BoingBoing

“With confidence, verve, and empathy, Ronson skillfully informs and engages the reader without excusing those caught up in the shame game. As he stresses, we are the ones wielding this incredible power over others’ lives, often with no regard for the lasting consequences of our actions.” –Starred Booklist Review

“Clever and thought-provoking, this book has the potential to open an important dialogue about faux moral posturing online and its potentially disastrous consequences.” –Publishers Weekly

“Relentlessly entertaining and thought-provoking.”  –TheGuardian

 “Certainly, no reader could finish it without feeling a need to be gentler online, to defer judgment, not to press the retweet button, to resist that primal impulse to stoke the fires of shame.”–The Times
 
“Excruciating, un-put-downable…So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed is a gripping read, packed with humor and compassion and Ronson’s characteristic linguistic juggling of the poignant and the absurd.”
–Chapter16.org
 
“A powerful and rewarding read, a book utterly of the moment.”—The Hamilton Spectator

“Ronson is a lovely, fluid writer, and he has a keen eye for painful, telling details.” —The Bloomberg View

“Fascinating and trenchant.” –The Denver Post
 
“[Ronson] is one of our most important modern day thinkers…[So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed] is one of the most therapeutic books imaginable.” – US News & Word Report

“Personable and empathetic, Ronson is an entertaining guide to the odd corners of the shame-o-sphere.” –The Houston Chronicle
 
“[A] satirical Malcolm Gladwell… an accessible, fun read.” – Everyday Ebook

From the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Paperback: 320 pagesPublisher: Riverhead Books (March 29, 2016)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 1594634017ISBN-13: 978-1594634017 Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches Shipping Weight: 10.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies) Best Sellers Rank: #231,378 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #107 in Books > Medical Books > Psychology > History #118 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Psychology & Counseling > History #1162 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Pop Culture > General
If you’re at all involved with social media, I’m willing to bet that if you stop and think for even a few seconds, you can come up with an example of someone — famous or previously anonymous — who has been publicly shamed. A car wash worker just lost his job for making disgusting, racist comments about President Obama’s daughter — the ensuing kerfuffle probably ended up winning a larger audience for those comments than he would have had in the first place, ironically enough. There was the tennis championship commenter who asked a female contestant to "give us a twirl" as she went out onto the court for her match (to show off her garb and legs), and more recently, the obituary writer who chose to comment, unflatteringly, on author Colleen McCullough’s looks as if they were as important as her achievements. All have been named and shamed online. And that’s just off the top of my head, in the last week or two.

The tool of shaming someone publicly for breaking the law or violating the social contract in some other way is as old as time. But with the advent of the Internet, and specifically, the rise of tools like Twitter, shaming can go viral instantly. Instead of your immediate community knowing what you did wrong — and deciding whether and when to forgive you, because they may have a sense of the broader context and of who you are as a person beyond that misstep — the entire world now becomes aware, instantly, without any of that context. And the results, as Ronson shows, can be horrifying and potentially disproportionate.
Ronson starts his book off by recounting a personal story. A group of men who made highfalutin’ claims to conducting some sort of social experiment set up a Twitter account using Ronson’s name, though they claim they weren’t trying to pretend to be him. This account began sending out Tweets that made Ronson fear that his friends and family would mistake them for some alternate universe of himself. He confronted the men on camera, the video was uploaded to YouTube, and commenters promptly began to wage a shame war on the perpetrators that ultimately ended with their taking down the fake Twitter account. Ah, sweet justice. Or was it?

Ronson began to wonder what happens to the people on the receiving end of an Internet mob’s rage. Through digging into the stories of and conducting interviews with well-know people like disgraced author and journalist Jonah Lehrer and ordinary, previously unknown people like Justine Sacco, Ronson provides a vivid and disturbing picture of what happens to the people on the receiving end of vigilante-style justice and raises interesting philosophical questions about what this means for our larger culture.

This book in no way defends the actions of the people it depicts, though Ronson does have sympathy for his subjects. Instead, he poses a very thought-provoking question: are you so sure this can’t happen to you? While it’s one thing for the Internet to bring real criminal actions to light and ensure they don’t go unpunished, it’s another thing for someone who does something stupid or ill-conceived to be subjected to the same scrutiny. After all, how many of us can say we’ve never made a tasteless joke or said something others might construe as offensive because we thought it was "safe" to do so?
I found this book to be just fascinating. The title is certainly intriguing, but it was also a rare book that actually made me change my opinions on an issue. And THAT doesn’t happen very often. I also think in the research and writing of this book, author Jon Ronson had a similar experience.

One of his first quick examples involves an LA Fitness that was shamed on social media because they wouldn’t cancel the membership of a couple who had lost their jobs and couldn’t afford the fees. The result of that was that LA Fitness backed down – a story that makes one believe in the "power of the people".

"Something of real consequence was happening. We were at the start of a great renaissance of public shaming. After a lull of almost 180 years (public punishments were phased out in 1837 in the United Kingdom and in 1839 in the United States), it was back in a big way. When we deployed shame, we were utilizing an immensely powerful tool. It was coercive, borderless, and increIDg in speed and influence. Hierarchies were being leveled out. The silenced were getting a voice. It was like the democratization of justice."

He may have started this project with that feeling, I don’t think he believed this at the end.

One famous (infamous) example of modern day public shaming was the story of Justine Sacco – a woman who had made a VERY ill-thought out tweet at the beginning of a plane flight to Africa – and whose life was ruined by the time she landed. (To confirm how long public shaming can stay with you – I just typed "Justine S" into a search engine – her name was the first result and this happened in 2013.
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