So You've Been Publicly Shamed

Jon Ronson

Penguin, 2015 - Psychology - 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.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - kropferama - LibraryThing

Much of the internet is a mean and dark place. Jon Ronson shows how the power of the internet can be turned on an individual to publicly shame a person and in some cases destroy their lives. A couple ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - burritapal - LibraryThing

Great book, easy-to-read, with flow, humor and compassion. This book is about people like the dentist who shot Cecil the lion, but it went to publication before that happened. Too bad. Too bad also ...

Contents

• one Braveheart: 1
• Three The Wilderness: 33
• Four God That Was Awesome: 67
• Five Man Descends Several Rungs in: 91
• Six Doing Something Good: 111
• seven Journey to a ShameFree Paradise: 137
• Eight The ShameEradication Workshop: 157
• Ten The Near Drowning of Mike Daisey: 191
• Eleven The Man Who Can Change: 205
• Twelve The Terror: 231
• Fourteen Cats and Ice Cream and Music: 263
• Bibliography and Acknowledgments: 283

About the author

Jon Ronson's books include the New York Times bestsellers The Psychopath Test and Lost at Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries, and international bestsellers Them: Adventures with Extremists and The Men Who Stare at Goats. He also cowrote the screenplay for Frank, which will be released in theaters August 2014, and which stars Michael Fassbender and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Ronson is a regular contributor to This American Life and lives in London and New York City.

Bibliographic information

• Title: So You've Been Publicly Shamed
• Author: Jon Ronson
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Penguin, 2015
• ISBN: 1594487138, 9781594487132
• Length: 290 pages
• Subjects: PSYCHOLOGY / History; PSYCHOLOGY / Interpersonal Relations; SOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture