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 […]
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 […]
Interesting and Flawed
I have quite literally put this review off for most of 2015. I read it in March! My feelings for it are not very complicated: I liked it. I liked it a lot. It’s just that the subject matter is itself complicated and worthy of a better review than I am able to give it. Especially since I’ve left the review til December 30th. Ronson centers his book on the phenomenon of internet shaming. Internet shaming might be new, but shaming in and of itself […]