Dear Internet,

 

We have a problem, and we need to talk. I think this is a problem that we’ve always had, but over the past few years, I have noticed it growing more and more. Whereas once this problem only existed in small niches of the Internet, nowadays it runs rampant on all forms of social media. It is a problem that we are all part of, and it is a problem inherent to human psychology that is amplified by the Internet.

Internet, we have a problem with the shame culture that we have become.

But first – what is shame? Shame and guilt are not the same thing. Whereas guilt is being disappointed or ashamed at something that you have done, and stems from your own values being compromised by your actions, shame is when you are made to feel disappointed or ashamed at who you are, based upon outside values. Guilt tends to label actions, and tends to make you want to live up to your own expectations. Shame tends to label individuals instead of their actions, and thus offers no way of making up for the supposed defect.

A shame culture, then, is a culture that uses shame as a form of structure. There are traditional examples of shame cultures that did work. For example, Japan has long been an honour-shame culture. There are roles within society that you are expected to fulfill. Failure to fulfill those roles results in being shamed, while success in fulfilling those roles results in honour. In a small, isolated, and well understood society with little deviations, that system works. That is not the world we occupy in modern times.

The Internet is not a healthy shame culture (if such a thing could even exist in today’s globalized society). Rather, the Internet possesses a unique constellation of factors that predisposes it to being an unhealthy and hurtful place.

The Web is a fast, easy, and distant place. Shaming one another is as easy and quick as hitting “like” on a Facebook post. Further, the distance provided by the Internet can enable us to be harsher than we would in person. When you never encounter your victim, it is easier to forget that they are a person. When there are no consequences, you’re much more likely to be mean.

In addition to the inherent factors, online culture also increases the shame culture effect. First, reactions tend to be that of a hivemind, or a mob. We follow and multiply and feed upon reactions until no moderated response is possible. A mob cannot have a discussion where they decide “What this person did was bad, on about a level of 4/10. Therefore we think they should get a 4/10 punishment.” Rather, it often becomes “They bad! They a bad person! Punish them!”

Compounding this further, online culture calls for idols. We love people that are fast and witty. Problems arise when we have fast and witty people that aren’t necessarily accurate or concerned.

Finally, online culture is sensationalized. When we are obsessed with hits and traffic to the point that we make misleading but attention-grabbing headlines and write extreme stances to get reactions, we are more prone to shaming others. Shaming is often used for profit and attention, and this is unacceptable .

To put the cherry onto this shame sundae, the Internet is also a permanent and worldwide record. This means that once you are shamed on the Internet, that record can persist. In today’s society, this can be a death sentence for any career that involves the media, and a huge impairment in most other careers.

Shame Culture takes two very different yet similar forms online. The first form is that of hate culture. This is something that we are all familiar with, involving examples like slut shaming, image shaming, shame punishment, revenge porn, gossip blogs, and many other awful things. This hate culture is often used as either a means of profit through exploitation or a means of revenge. There can be no defense to this form of shame culture. It is awful, exploitive, and often misogynistic and racist as well.

Shame Culture can take another form on the Internet, however. A well-intentioned but ultimately flawed and broken form, which was coined as Social Justice Vigilantism (SJV). SJV most likely began as a way of serving justice to those that the law couldn’t or wouldn’t reach. Its original targets were likely those very people who participated in the hate culture listed above, people who would do awful things that weren’t technically illegal yet, such as hosting and posting revenge porn. The law could do nothing to these bad people, and so the other side of the Internet reacted to them and found ways of punishing them through the same mechanism that was being exploited: shame. I am sure that shaming those original people profiting off of hate culture felt wonderful. It probably felt like you were grasping justice, forcing it upon these people doing awful things who were escaping from the law, giving them real consequences for their actions.

SJV has mutated, however. As the community has grown, the target list has expanded, and more problems have emerged. SJV suffers from mob mentality. This mentality often leads to a disconnect between the supposed crime and the desired punishment. A simple picture or statement said in a moment of stupidity or made without proper thought, or even just taken out of context, can cost a person not only their job, but future career.

Further, increasingly harsher punishments are sought as a form of validation, because people want to be able to see that this person who ‘deserves shame’ is being properly punished for their offense. When mob mentality rules, it is so easy to forget that the person being targeted, despite their offense, is still a person. It is so easy to get so obsessed with seeing a tangible punishment that we forget that we should be caring about the person learning a lesson instead. They are still human, and humans can be broken and damaged by shame.

Worst of all, the effects of this mob shaming often live far longer than the actual attention span of the Internet. Even as the Internet moves on to a new target, the new victim of shame must deal with the results. As the Internet forgets about their hatred, the new victim must deal with their shame, and this can take years.

SJV is a much more complicated form of shame culture than hate culture is. It is well intentioned but flawed. It is a way of giving punishment to those that may deserve it but aren’t necessarily eligible through conventional means. However, is it a good form of punishment? It definitely has the ability to enact consequences for actions, but it lacks in being able to establish a body of proof. These consequences can be applied before actual guilt is proven, and cannot be easily recalled.

Shame Culture, even if used for good intentions, is dangerous. First, it targets a person instead of their actions. It labels a person as bad, instead of their actions. It doesn’t try to change actions; it tries to call attention to how bad a person is. Shame culture also continues well past any form of teaching a lesson. Well after a person has admitted that their actions were wrong, those participating in shame culture will continue calling for more consequences. This is not beneficial for anybody except those trying to make a message or those being entertained. That is the problem with shame culture. It is inherently linked to entertainment. No form of justice should ever be linked to entertainment. The entire point of a justice system is to divorce pleasure from punishment. Justice is not a pleasure, it is a DUTY. Further, public shaming tends to be not that effective of a lesson, as our attention spans move on. There are very few people who would stop before they say something, and think “Maybe I shouldn’t post this as I’m going to get shamed for it if I do”. If you’ve noticed, generally those getting shamed are people who were unaware of how horrible or stupid their comment or action would seem.

Shaming brands a person with their worst decision, forever, and offers no hope of recovery. It is not humane. It is not impartial. It is not justice. At the very most it is an example of something that can be done while our justice systems takes time to adapt to our changing more connected world.   It is not a good solution, however. Instead of shaming each other, we should be pressuring our lawmakers to spread justice to those deserving of it.

Internet, we need to be kinder to each other. Please, we need to remember that we are all humans. We all make mistakes. We all say stupid things. We should not be punishing each other for our mistakes. We should be teaching each other to be better, and we should be accepting each other’s flaws rather than gleefully tearing each other apart for our own amusement or profit.

One thing that my beloved editors pointed out to me and that I think is incredibly important to point out: I do not think that people intentionally set out to shame others. I think it is an unfortunate behavior born of the factors of the Internet. Whether you intentionally or unintentionally participate in shame culture, I also want to be clear that you should not be ashamed of who you are. That would defeat the entire purpose of this piece. Instead, I am suggesting that we as a society should take the time to truly think about our actions before we take them. We should take the time to think about whether we will be hurting others, and whether that is something that we should be doing.

So please, dear reader, next time you think of liking a post that might hurt another, or of making a post that will tear another down, stop and think. Think of them as a human, and think of how you might feel in their shoes.

Be kind to each other,
TWS

 

(1) http://www.theawl.com/2012/12/the-internets-vigilante-shame-army

(2) http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html?_r=1

(3) http://www.vanityfair.com/style/society/2014/06/monica-lewinsky-humiliation-culture

(4) http://awshamecultureinjapan.blogspot.ca/