This is a Must Listen

I bought this book as a Daily Deal and waited to listen. My fist thought was this subject matter is removed from anything in my world but might be interesting. This book has scared me. Yes I knew about Internet trolls and assumed they are the sickness of society. This book educated me on how easy it is to judge and when you judge online you have the power to destroy. I remember being outraged reading about Cecile the Lion. Made me sick. Justine Sacci made a very thoughtless comment online and was gutted. I remember seeing this on the news. What if my niece or another family member is feeling a bit flip one day and makes an innocent gaffe. I've found a new thing to worry about. My biggest fear before was hurting someone while driving. I'd be fully prepared to flay myself for that but social shaming is different. In your heart you know you are innocent of hateful thought or deed but someone can misconstrue your motive and the punishment could be more severe then if you actually did run someone down. This is quite terrifying and hopefully we will all realize how vulnerable we all are to making mistakes.

5 people found this helpful

view changing.

early do I seek out time in my day to finish an audiobook, usually it is something I run idly whilst doing errands.

Jon Ronson's investigative approach to how dangerous and liberating social media is should be mandatory reading before accepting the terms and conditions of Twitter. The only criticism I can give is that the narration quality may have been done better by a voice acting professional, but Jon puts a lot of heart into his storytelling.

4 people found this helpful

Terrifying

Absolutely fascinating and on-point look at the way the internet outrage machine punishes people who don't meet the requirements of whatever is deemed to be acceptable behaviour. This book looks as how a single insensitive tweet can completely destroy the life of the person who sent it, and shines a light on how mass-humiliation is used to silence and ruin people who made even a single minor mistake. Jon Ronson critically examines the desire of the internet hive-mind to "take people to task" without any regard for what the long term impact of say, ending the career of a woman for delivering a poorly-worded joke about white privilege, will have before they move onto the next person who possibly pretended to yell in front of a sign that asked for silence at a war memorial.

While the book touches on the added angle of misogyny in a lot of this shaming, I feel like it could have been explored more thoroughly, but that's a whole other book.

All in all, this is an incredibly eye-opening read.

A very effective line: "Shamings are always about more than the transgression."

#Audible1

2 people found this helpful

Perfect performance by Ronson

The narration is on point! Felt so natural and like you're listening to a podcast. Content was chilling and a must read for our current world.

1 person found this helpful

Humane & intelligent & depressingly prescient

The fact that this came out five years ago, & everything he talks about has only gotten worse, is both a testament to Ronson’s insight & a depressing reminder of the ultimately limited power of good writing & ideas.

1 person found this helpful

Seriously interesting

I read this book after experiencing a small bit of online shaming that was incorrectly assigned to me instead of the actual person (I was confused for them). Even just a small one was a harrowing experience. I've also been on the other end where I've publicly shamed people I felt deserved it. This book was a punch in the gut! It is so real, the stories so weird, interesting, raw, and in some cases funny or sad. It's so easy to see how a normal person can fall into this trap from both ends. Loved having the author narrate it. So dang interesting.

1 person found this helpful

extremely helpful

doing what has been the most difficult year of my life
after I was brutally publicly shamed by my own community friends and people I considered family
listening to John detail other public shaming and his psychological breakdown of understanding shame
this book has tremendously helpful for me to process what has happened to me

thankyou for every word

Packed with Things to Ponder

Lots to think about here. It kept me eagerly attentive and Ronson's narration style has an engaging sense of urgency. Generous use of examples. I would have loved a little evolutionary psychology support for the ideas, but that's just a wish list not a weakness.

Interesting, A Little Dry

I've really enjoyed Jon's books in the past, and this one seemed particularly timely considering the sheer volume of shaming that seems to happen online every day. I did enjoy the stories, and the insight into the various individuals who've experienced this kind of mass shaming, although overall I found the book to be a little slower and a little drier that I had anticipated. I think, for myself, I really also expected more content around cases where public shaming was perhaps more warranted (the lion killing dentist for example, who was only referenced briefly in the afterword).

Overall I would say that this was interesting to listen to.

Avoid this book

The author offers no conclusions about public shaming, just narcissistic vignettes.
It’s not a book about public shaming as it is the story of how the author became aware of the topic.
The author narrates the audible book and his voice could put an insomniac to sleep after a couple of minutes
Don’t waste your time on this one