So You've Been Publicly Shamed

Jon Ronson

Mar 2015 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

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.

Ratings and reviews

Very interesting and captivating. I read it over 2 days. I feel like I understand people a little better and can identify public shaming now as it happens across my insta feed(ie, Stoya and James Deen, rape twitter allegations). And I liked jons use of verbatim and the variety of situations he involved himself in to get a thorough analysis of this Shame.

Love Jon Ronson's personal, engaging narrative style. He is a careful, thoughtful, insightful writer and is an expert at connecting dots. This book about shame and its place in society is well worth a read.

Incredibly easy to read and so insightful... I could go on and on but really just stop reading this and start the book

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.