CBR10Bingo – Not My Wheelhouse I don’t tend to read the kind of books that make-up or spawn from NPR and This American Life stories. I will admit: I don’t particularly like David Sedaris. Anyway, this book I picked up because I want to do a unit of media literacy, choices, and online futures with my English 12 students, and I was hoping at least one chapter of this would be useful to share with them. For the most part the book isn’t great […]
Don’t wanna be shamed? Maybe just don’t be a dick…
Once forming a big part of punishments, particularly before the 19th century, public shaming has come back with a bang since the rise of social media. In So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, journalist Jon Ronson takes a look at some of the people who have become famous for being publicly shamed – people like Justine Sacco, the African Aids tweet woman; Lindsay Stone, who took a photo of herself flipping off a sign at Arlington Cemetery; and various men who’ve been caught in sex scandals […]
You wouldn’t say that in a room full of strangers, why say it on social media?
In October 2017 I went to the Episodic conference, where Jon Ronson was one of the featured speakers. He was scheduled to go on just after the lunch break, and I was slightly late getting back in, which turned out not to be a problem, because instead of actually being at the conference, he was Skyping in to be interviewed by the moderator, Anna Higgs and the connection wasn’t working. This was quite weird, as Ronson actually owns a home not far from the London venue where the conference […]
I Do Not Like the Cone of Shame
Back in December 2013, a PR consultant stopped before boarding a plane to tweet at her 170 followers. “Going to Africa,” she wrote, “Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding, I’m white!” When Justine Saccro got off the plane 11 hours later, she had no idea that her life had totally changed. Her tweet went viral, as tens of thousands of people expressed their outrage and demanded (basically) her head. She immediately lost her job and served her 15 minutes as the most hated person […]