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So You've Been Publicly Shamed
- Narrated by: Jon Ronson
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
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Editor reviews
Summary
From the Sunday Times top ten best-selling 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 jokes on social media that came out badly or made mistakes at work. Once their transgressions were revealed, collective outrage circled with the force of a hurricane, and the next thing they knew they were being torn apart by an angry mob, jeered, demonized, sometimes even fired from their jobs.
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.
Jon Ronson is an award-winning writer and documentary maker. He is the author of two best sellers, Them: Adventures with Extremists and The Men Who Stare at Goats, and two collections Out of the Ordinary: True Tales of Everyday Craziness and What I Do: More True Tales of Everyday Craziness. He lives in London.
This is an updated edition with new afterword, written and narrated by Jon Ronson.
Critic reviews
What listeners say about So You've Been Publicly Shamed
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- M. S.
- 20-08-19
Not too bad for a Jon Ronson book
I’m struggling a little to give this book a fair review as I knew before I bought it that I wouldn’t like it. I don’t like Jon Ronson or his writing style. “The men who stared at goats” was watching paint dry. I then accidentally encountered him again with “The psychopath test” and was so disgusted I gave him one star plus an eternal avoidance of all his works from my side. Thus I agonised a long time about this book, but in the end the topic was too interesting and too under discussed not to buy it. So here we are.
This is a typical Jon Ronson book. Don’t expect a coherent structure, story or message. It is, like all his books seem to be, essentially a diary about Jon Ronson and how the world makes him feel (and should make you feel). He travelled around and talked with people about public shaming. The benefit the reader gets is of not having to travel around and getting insight into the views of people who would likely never talk to you unless you are Jon Ronson. As usual, the author does not end up looking half as great as he clearly feels he does, so I won’t bore you by enumerating the various places where this happens. Only one case stood out so jarringly that I will mention it: Jonah Lehrer, the disgraced journalist who was plagiarising his and everyone else’s work, showed the Jon Ronson his apology speech before making it to get his opinion. As soon as the author described the contents I knew this was going to go terribly. Apparently so did Jon Ronson, but he still mailed back that the speech was “fantastic”, because he wanted to keep Jonah on his side. Unsurprisingly, the apology was a massive disaster, Jonah was publicly shamed all over again and abused, ending up in further disgrace than before. Jon reacted by openly saying “Yeah, I knew it was going to blow up, but I wanted that interview...”
Seriously, how can you claim to be advocating for the disgraced and publicly shamed, when you are actively taking part in the downfall for selfish reasons?! Then the author has the NERVE to keep holding up the shaming of Jonah Lehrer during his apology speech as the ultimate example of horror, which he kept thinking of to remind himself of how brutal the *internet* is - apparently forgetting that he constructed the disaster in the first place to get his interview and enjoy ringside seeds during a public shaming in action. I’m sorry, but that is a complete disgrace and gives you an idea of just how unpleasant a human being this man is.
Furthermore I should mention the MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING. There are multiple mentions of beastiality in this book and sadly not as a reason for public shaming. The most graphic example is - thank goodness - fairly obvious nonsense, because the perpetrator would have fallen over dead from a major allergic reaction.
Now onto the actual contents of the book: It is fairly “meh”. The message that is really the most interesting to take away is that internet shamings do not just last the few days they are happening. The damage is far more extensive and can be life destroying. Most outraged netizens angrily tweeting their disgust for an off colour joke, expect everyone’s lives to be continuing as usual in a week’s time, but that is just not the case. People interviewed in the book had long term problems getting hired or finding partners, even if their crime was just a tweet that got misinterpreted several years ago. Essentially, we need to be aware that we are at all times building our “brand”, that future employers and love interests will check. That is a scary, dystopian reality the author appears to completely miss. Instead he focuses on anecdotes. His most profound realisation appears to be that no one cares about white powerful men having kinks anymore. There is little mention of the underlying misogyny and racism that dictates public opinion even today. It keeps getting alluded to, but then the author gets distracted by how great he is. Honestly, someone should write a book: “What can we learn from So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed?”
I’m giving the book 2 stars, because in many ways it is fairly mediocre. I then deducted one star for the obnoxious author and his disastrous writing style. Still, it is my most highly rated Jon Ronson book, which I suppose is a certain badge of honour...
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44 people found this helpful
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- Paul
- 19-03-15
Gripping
There are really two elements to journalism: research and storytelling. The author has completely excelled at both in this spellbinding book. I was fascinated and will definitely be reading more of his books. He reads it himself, and does it very well. It is astonishing how an offhand tweet can ruin someone's life, or how what seems to me to be a fairly minor error in reporting a quotation can threaten a career. The author really gets beneath the issues around this, and even sneaks in a bit of (in my opinion completely justified) shaming himself.
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42 people found this helpful
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- Kirstine
- 18-12-15
Pause before you post online!
I didn’t know what to expect from this book and hadn’t heard of the author, but I’m glad I down-loaded it as I found it most interesting and at times scarily thought-provoking. The author’s a good story-teller and he has certainly collected some extraordinary examples of shaming by social media. What I found disconcerting was the disparity between the supposed transgression and the ferocity of the reaction. A slightly ill-judged tweet or photo posted on Facebook can lead to a deluge of abusive language and even death threats. It’s depressing to think that there are hundreds of thousands of people so full of venom hiding under the cover of anonymity. There’s interesting material about research into crowd behaviour as a possible explanation.
The book isn’t just a catalogue of examples of online shaming but also describes historical examples of public ridicule and delves into the interesting question as to why some errors of judgement or bad behaviour are judged worthy of a public shaming whereas others are not and how what merits opprobrium has changed over the centuries.
A well researched book admirably narrated by the author.
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39 people found this helpful
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- Eoin
- 09-04-15
A must read for online users
Decided not to review because having listening to the book I'm questioning my own motivation for reviewing.
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22 people found this helpful
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- Kaggy
- 18-05-15
Who shall we destroy today?
I'm most afraid I'm one of those naive people who thought the Internet was overwhelmingly a force for good. What harm can there be in having the world's knowledge freely available and being able to communicate with a vast array of people, exposing wrongs and making wrongdoers accountable?
Jon Ronson begins this by recounting a time when his own Twitter identity is stolen as part of a dubious intellectual exercise thus putting his reputation at risk. He exposed the perpetrators on You Tube and received resounding support resulting in the exercise being terminated. He then gives instances where people have said outrageous things and have on the face of it been on the receiving end of a well deserved Internet backlash. The mood then changes when he gives accounts of people who's biggest crime is telling a poor joke or acting in a way that invites misinterpretation and the stories of how their lives have been destroyed are truly sobering. One of the examples made me squirm when my initial reaction was to despise one of the protagonists for seemingly over-reacting and harming another individual only to be on the receiving end of threats so vile and intense that it can never be seen as proper or proportionate justice. The Internet and social media has re-introduced the age old punishment of public shaming and there are plenty of keyboard warriors out there who are more than happy to actively participate in the spectacle of abusing people in the virtual stocks.
The Internet will continue to fascinate and this is a brilliant account of appalling behaviour, how online identities can be manipulated so the bad stuff gets buried, and how much money is earned from increased Internet traffic. It also increased my growing suspicion that the results of my Internet search are not as reliable as the good old Encyclopedia Britannica.
Jon always presents his material in a very engaging way and I remain a fan after listening to this.
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20 people found this helpful
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- Paul Matthews
- 18-03-15
Engrossing and disturbing look at how we shame
Brilliantly read by the author, So You've Been Publicly Shamed is well worth a listen. On a par with Ronson's previous efforts we are treated to an in depth investigation of public shaming that grips to the very end.
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19 people found this helpful
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- David
- 14-06-15
Magazine article (at best)
5 stars, seriously.. 5 stars should be saved for one of the BEST books you've ever read not this sort of thing. Is this really the one the finest works of literature that you've ever encountered? The 5 star review is fast becoming a meaningless barometer.
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16 people found this helpful
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- David
- 02-04-15
Thought provoking Jon Ronson style
A great read, more serious than other books of his I have listened to. However it's done with his usual dry wit. Its
Basically about public shaming the Twitter way which is one of those topics that I didn't have an opinion on before I read the book but I really should have.
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13 people found this helpful
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- johanna lloyd
- 16-05-18
Everyone should read this book
For all those that call for the “name and Shame” on social media THINK before you assume, attack and judge.... be Kind, We are all flawed, we all make mistakes... remember Bill and Ted? “Be excellent to each other” that’s a pretty decent code of conduct.
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12 people found this helpful
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- D. Faulkner
- 18-03-15
The very best of Ronson
I've read them all and this is the best by far. Thoughtful, thoughtful and brutally honest. This book could literally change the way you see social media, justice and human nature. What have done and where are we headed?
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11 people found this helpful