So You've Been Publicly Shamed

Ronson begins Chapter 5 with a brief discussion of his experience of the London riots of 2011, which occurred near his home, and a general description of mob violence. He decides to investigate the scientific foundations of group madness, which has its origins in the research of 19th-century French doctor Gustave Le Bon. According to historian Bob Nye, Le Bon was traumatized by the Paris uprisings in 1871 and decided to prove that revolutionary uprisings were a form of madness. Le Bon used pseudoscientific methods, such as measuring the volume of skulls, to make his claims, which were rejected by Parisian anthropologists. Refusing to concede, Le Bon abandoned scientific methods, relying instead on sociology and psychology, and published the seminal book The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind in 1895. The Crowd describes how crowds are irrational and their moods contagious. This concept later becomes known as “deindividuation” (94).

Twentieth-century psychologist Philip Zimbardo decided to study deindividuation in his infamous Standford Prison Experiment. In this experiment, groups of Stanford undergrads were assigned roles of either prison guard or prisoner. Within days, Zimbardo claims, the prison guards were abusing the prisoners. Ronson interviews some of the participants in this experiment, and they cast doubt on Zimbardo’s findings. The most violent “prison guard,” Dave Eschelman, says he was just acting like a character from the film Cool Hand Luke to please Zimbardo. Zimbardo contests Eschelman’s account, saying he decided to act cruelly of his own volition. Ronson then cites Peter Gray, a psychologist at Boston College, who explains why he finds Zimbardo’s findings unconvincing. Ronson concludes that even if the motivation for mob behavior wasn’t group “madness” but rather the desire to please or to exact justice, it is still troubling.

In Chapter 6, Ronson investigates the case of social media shaming involving two tech developers, “Hank” (a pseudonym) and Adria Richards. At a conference in Santa Clara, Richards overhears Hank making sexually charged jokes with a friend. She complains to the conference organizers and tweets a picture of him and his friend. Hank apologizes online for his behavior and explains he was fired for it. As a result, Richards herself is attacked online for complaining about Hank, including rape and death threats, and is later fired. Ronson then interviews Mercedes, one of the 4chan (an online message board) members who attacked Richards. Mercedes connects the desire to enact online justice with the injustice she faces in her own life at the hands of the police, such as that caused by the New York Police Department’s “Stop and Frisk” policies (116-17). Ronson notes that pop-science author Malcolm Gladwell had supported Stop and Frisk policies in the New Yorker based on faulty evidence, a topic about which Ronson himself had questioned Gladwell.

Mercedes describes why it feels good to take down “rich white [people]” (121) like Justine Sacco when you are poor and/or from a historically underrepresented racial or ethnic background. Ronson asks Mercedes why so much of the social media shaming directed at women uses misogynistic language and threats. She replies that for men, the worst thing that can happen is that they lose their jobs, whereas for women, it is to be raped.

Ronson follows up with Hank and Richards. Hank says he feels badly about what happened to Richards, whereas Richards has no remorse. Hank has a new job, whereas Richards does not. Ronson asks Richards whether her actions were connected to her difficult childhood relationship with her father, which she denies. This leads Ronson to reflect on how justified he felt when, A. A. Gill, a writer who had poorly reviewed him, was shamed on social media for killing a baboon, and how it is possibly connected to Ronson’s desire for revenge against his school bullies.