Jon Ronson
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Description
I recently spoke with Jon Ronson about his latest book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed. It's about people who've had their lives ruined from online shaming. In the book, Jon spent time with recipients of online shaming, including Jonah Lehrer, The Silence and Respect photo person, the people fired in the dongle joke incident, and Justine Sacco, who tweeted “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!”. I was sickly fascinated by the book. I think it's Ronson's best book, and I have loved every book he's written (Men Who Stare at Goats, Lost at Sea, The Psychopath Test, etc.). I kept telling my wife how great this book was while I was reading it, and she became intrigued, so I had to rip it down the spine and give the first half to her while I finished the second half. We both had the same feeling from reading it -- a fear of tweeting, and reluctance to join in on an online shame pile-on. I spoke to Jon by phone.
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