Public Shaming Quotes

“On a normal day, these people would be buying from the bakers, tailors, cordwainers, binders and candlemakers lining the boulevard. They’d be smiling and laughing, grumbling about the infernal heat, but manacle a man and offer him up to torment, and even the meekest soul surrendered itself to the devil.”
― Stuart Turton, The Devil and the Dark Water

“Such public shaming is rampant and sometimes appropriate, but unfortunately, in recent years, shaming has morphed into coordinated reputation murders, and anyone who is slightly insensitive or not PC enough can be led to a public character lynching without due process.”
― Gudjon Bergmann, More Likely to Quote Star Wars than the Bible: Generation X and Our Frustrating Search for Rational Spirituality

“Look! We're saying. "We're normal! This is the average!" We're defining the boundaries of normality by tearing apart the people outside of it.”
― Jon Ronson

“The flaws of some people lead to horrors inflicted on to others. And then there are the more human flaws that, when you shine a light on to them, de-demonise people that might otherwise be seen as ogres.”
― Jon Ronson, So You've Been Publicly Shamed

“An anonymous goddess. Her phone is both a video camera and the sharpest pitchfork in the room, shoeing away the big monster.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“And then one day it hit me. Something of real consequence was happening. We were at the start of a great renaissance of public shaming. After a lull of 180 years (public punishments were phased out in 1837 in the United Kingdom and 1839 in the United States) it was back in a big way. When we deployed shame, we were utilizing an immensely powerful tool. It was coercive, borderless, and increasing in speed and influence. Hierarchies were being levelled out. The silenced were getting a voice. It was like the democratization of justice. And so I made a decision. The next time a great modern shaming unfolded against some significant wrongdoer - the next time citizen justice prevailed in a dramatic and righteous way - I would leap into the middle of it.”
― Jon Ronson, So You've Been Publicly Shamed