So You've Been Publicly Shamed

Notes

• Chapter 1: Braveheart

• “We were at the start of a great ‘renaissance of public shaming’ - “public punishments were phased out in 1837 in the United Kingdom and 1839 in the United States”
• “When we deployed shame, we were utilizing an immensely powerful tool. It was coercive, borderless, and increasing in speed and influence.”
  • power and coercion at the heart of the issue
• “Hierarchies were being levelled out. The silenced were getting a voice. It was like the democratization of justice.”
  • that’s an interesting argument FOR public shaming
  • but hierarchies aren’t always levelled but often reinforced in public shaming
  • punching up and punching down
  • this is why mobbing and hateful tirage isn’t the same as ‘cancelling’ or simply calling in/out someone for how they use a large platform
• “citizen justice”

• Chapter 2: I’m Glad I’m Not That

• “Michael was considering blogging on how ‘self-plagiarism’ was considered less of a crime in Britain than in America, and what that said about the two cultures.”
  • interesting topic
• “As Michael’s wife Joanna told me, ‘Michael is the guarder of social rules.’ She turned to him. ‘You’re a nice guy as long as everyone else …’ She trailed off. ‘When I go out in the world,’ Michael said, ‘if someone throws some garbage on the street, it’s the most senseless thing to me. I lose my mind. Why are you doing this?’ ‘And it’s for hours,’ Joanna said. ‘We’re out on a nice walk and it’s a half-an-hour rant …’ ‘I see things collapsing,’ Michael said.
  • this sounds like autistic existentialism to me, an autistic existentialist
• “I’m not one of those young Gawker guys going, “Find me a target I can burn in the public square and then people will know who I am.””
  • bloodthirsty journalism and paparazzi cultures, legacy
• comparing it to hunting with all the exhilaration and unpleasantries
• why would exposing this minor misquote and cover-up lie ‘ruin a man’s life? “We don’t lose our job, we lose our vocation”, describes a journalist who fabricated an entire story and got sacked and wasn’t accepted to practise law afterwards - but is this comparable? and many other industries would surely be available other than the one where you REALLY have to not lie? author agrees the scales are different
• both ‘trapped’ by the story. “What would people think if the story got out? That he’d covered it up for career advancement?” As in witness to anything, becoming complicit - the trolley problem
• “Regret what?’ Michael thought. ‘Cheating? Lying?’ ‘I really regret ever responding to your email,’ Jonah said.”
  • regretting not the mistake but being caught. especially when you hand over the info by your own autonomy
• “Devious is creepy. Terrified is human.”
  • why predetermined action can seem more malicious, less blame on in-the-moment reaction
• “It’s about the terror, isn’t it?’ ‘The terror of what?’ I said. ‘The terror of being found out,’ he said. He looked like he felt he was taking a risk even mentioning to me the existence of the terror.” - that we all have something in us that bucks against our reputation
• “a door had briefly opened before me, revealing some infinite horror-land filled with millions of scared-stiff Jonahs. How many people had I banished to that land during my thirty years of journalism?”
  • complicity in their suffering from revealing the hidden truths, from framing the narrative as a revelation

• Chapter 3: The Wilderness