So You've Been Publicly Shamed

So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed (2015) by Jon Ronson is a nonfiction exploration of the phenomenon of public humiliation in the era of social media. Ronson is an immersive journalist, newspaper columnist, and documentarian who has written about a wide variety of fringe social contexts, including extremists, people who have psychopathy, military experiments with paranormal powers, and the pornography industry. Ronson assesses each of these topics, including humiliation on social media, through case studies, interviews, and on-location reporting. The book’s style is part journalism, part self-reflection, and uses humor to approach its subject. Its main themes are the Causes and Effects of Shame and Humiliation, Justice and Redemption, and Shaming in Print and Social Media.

So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed ultimately argues against judging people online too swiftly or harshly for their behavior. Ronson further examines this topic in his Audible Original podcast series The Last Days of August (2019) about a pornography actress who died by suicide after becoming the target of online shaming.

This study guide uses the 2016 paperback edition of the text with a new afterward from Picador Press.