This book was easy interesting reading, and I thought the stories were well compiled and the book flowed naturally. I appreciated Ronson’s decision to tell the stories basically in the order he researched them, explaining how his curiosity was triggered in each branching direction he took. ⁣
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Overall I sort of felt like there wasn’t a huge point to the book. It seems like he’s trying to argue that public shaming is going too far and that we need to stop and think before “ruining someone’s life” over a tasteless joke, but because the book goes in so many directions and focuses on interviews and research without a lot of arguing a point, I don’t think there’s a strong takeaway. Maybe this type of book doesn’t aim to give the reader that kind of clean-cut takeaway though? Is it meant only to provoke thought and inspire us to draw our own conclusion?⁣
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I agree with Traci’s criticism that this book doesn’t go far enough in exploring power dynamics at play in public shaming. I wanted more on racist/sexist double standards involved, both in the moment, and the question of who gets to bounce back. Certainly our experiences with “cancel culture” have evolved in many ways since this book was published in 2015, but even with the stories that were featured in this book I think more could have been brought into the conversation. Why, for example, is the one discussion on why generally only women experience rape threats as part of public shaming a brief conversation with a female 4chan troll who basically argues that dynamic seems logical to her? ⁣
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Excited to discuss this one since I think it’s biggest strength is dumping a lot of info in a well-ordered manner and provoking thought and discussion on an aspect of modern culture we sometimes take for granted.