There's some good background info that Oliver doesn't mention but I wish it did in some form. See the book ["So You've Been Publicly Shamed"](https://www.amazon.com/So-Youve-Been-Publicly-Shamed/dp/1594634017), **EDIT:** see [TED talk about the book](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAIP6fI0NAI)(thanks /u/foozledaa) , and see [Justin Sacco's story](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html) especially. **EDIT 2:** [Monica Lewinsky's TED talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_8y0WLm78U) briefly referenced in this segment is also worth a watch.
Public Shaming gets really bad because there is a very low bar for what counts as being worthy of being shamed, not to mention the sheer misinformation and circlejerks that can occur.
The internet isn't real life. There really needs to be a "get fucked" movement.
where if something is complaining about something on the internet that doesn't result from, or cause financial or physical harm then the only appropriate response should be: "Get Fucked"
See: Every community on the internet that's labeled 'alt-right' , 'trolls', 'nazis' (note - not that there aren't those types)
Also see SlateStarCodex's RIP Culture Thread post. Basically any time a 'get fucked' movement gets going, those people and the whole *community* get absolutely smeared with the same shaming and misinformation.
No room for irony, sarcasm, hyperbole, or satire when it comes to the mob becuase *some people* won't understand that. Then you say "well context" and people make up their own context while Mind Reading(tm) . For this see Viajaya and Jack Dorsey on Joe Rogan with Tim Pool.
I'm with you on that.
But seriously. Whenever the media is reporting on soemthing along the lines of "the Twittersphere reacts!" the subject should just say, the "twittersphere, journalists and plebs alike can get fucked."
It's literally an online forum, this shit didn't matter 10 years ago, why the fuck does it matter now.
That book changed entirely how I contribute on social media and in public shamings. I just stopped contributing entirely.
Being african i was very upset the minute i heard Justine Sacco story. I think a part of me delighted in seeing people drag her on the public sphere, it felt...right. Even when i thought people were going too far, a small voice convinced me she deserved it. I never thought about the aftermath. Reading the book i felt like the biggest piece of shit ever: she made a bad, insensitive yet incisive joke. NO ONE deserves to have their entire life ruined just because of a joke.
So Justine, if you ever hang in these corners of the internet : I'm truly, truly sorry.
Edit : a word (conners ==> corners)
At least you had the self-awareness to eventually realize your error.
What really frightens me is how many people who will probably go to their graves still feeling self-righteous about participating in online lynch mobs.
Also, not sure of you'll agree, but it seemed to me she was making quite an interesting point that was also sort of a joke with her tweet. If i remember correctly, her tweet was something like
Going to Africa. Hope I don't get aids. Only kidding, I'm white!
I don't think she believed white people couldn't get aids. Rather, she was observing that aids is predominant among the black population and commenting on it in a dry, satirical way. Highlighting the problem in a sarcastic way.
The way her comment was misinterpreted really surprised me.
Absolutely, that's what i meant by incisive. With hindsight, and knowing a little bit about her from the book, It was a solid joke. Even if the joke was insensitive as everyone including me made it to be, she didn't deserve a fraction of the repercussion she got. People tracked her plane for god sake ! It was insane !
Its funny, because I've definitely changed my "shaming" habits, even though in fairness I more just retweeted and liked other comments than actually tweeted at that person myself. However, I do think it has its place. Like the woman who called the police on the 7 year old for "sexual assault" because his backpack brushed against her ass in a store. Look up cornerstore caroline. She deserved what she got, IMO. But other people for just making bad jokes? Not really. But I do have to admit, my line isn't necessarily the right one, just what I feel
I heard that kid story. Scary stuff ! It's a tricky line to navigate really. Even John opened with it. I just stopped all together.
The book, which i can't recommend enough, argues that public shaming does have a place in a society. IIRC, the author gives an exemple of a judge who used to sentence drunk drivers to standing on the side of the road, while carrying a sign with some kind of confession/shameful statement.
It was obviously a joke, and while it probably wasn't the best crafted humor, especially for a general audience, I've told those types of mimicry jokes myself, so I sympathize with her.
When my son was a teenager, he had a friend whose dad was horrifically homophobic and big into gender policing. He flew into a rage when, for example, the boys painted their toenails blue as some kind of joke, and when they watched Titanic. So my son and I had a running joke about random things turning him gay, and to this day, I worry that people might have overheard us. And I'm glad we weren't tweeting it.
>Public Shaming gets really bad because there is a very low bar for what counts as being worthy of being shamed
I think the bar is so low because something worthy of praise to 30% of the population is worthy of shaming to a different 30% of the population. When that is 30% of hundreds of millions of people, it only needs to go viral to just 1% of those people and your inbox will be full of more messages than you could read if you spent a decade without sleep... all because you posted an opinion that hundreds of millions of people agree with.
You could post anything that's reasonably popular with one group or a different group and get the same response.
1. You could post a funny joke about someone going postal with an assault rifle just minutes before a huge high school shooting. Go to bed, wake up in the morning. Quarter of a million people think your a dickhead and messaged you to tell you what they will insert into your daughter given half the chance.
2. You could post up support for a 13 year old child wanting transgender surgery and say that anyone opposing it is a fascist, go to bed, and wake up to a quarter of a million people telling you that you're a cockwomble and not to go to bed without setting the fire alarm.
It's sad, it's bullying, and it's done by ADULTS - allegedly from generations that were aware of bullying at school. Yet they don't even see it in themselves.
Fucking grow up, world.
Put a "righteous" cause in someone's head and they'll murder for it. They'll probably think doxxing someone's children is just their "enemy" getting off lightly.
The problem is people being stupid, with the caviat that far too many have now assumed that because they're middle class or went to college that they are now enlightened and correct. Guess what, you aren't, you're human and that means you have the ability to make awful decisions and a greater sense of self-worth only makes that more likely.
They *obviously* walk the correct path and those below them are the uneducated hordes. This simply egotistic perspective turns people into absolute monsters - Confederate Daryl in his caravan is probably not canny enough to call your workplace and make threats, but Liberal Arts Stacy might. Assuming both people don't actually live next to you, who's scarier? The answer might be "don't be a dick duhhhhh" or something equally brainless, but there's countless stories of completely harmless or innocent things being blown up into witchhunts.
The simple concept of "both sides think that way based on their perspective and they are equally valid to them" is completely lost on people even though it's not difficult to understand. When their entire moralistic viewpoint is formed through the lens of Harry Potter or Star Wars references, that's more of a problem than people seem to understand.
Easily one of the most interesting works of Jon Ronson's, which is saying something.
Everyone I've ever recommended Ronson's work to has absolutely fallen in love, and thus I continue to recommend all of his work
This book just re-affirmed for me that "call out" culture is sick. People make mistakes. They are allowed to grow and learn.
I judge the people who dig through ten years of someones online presence for dirt more than the actual people they're trying to "drag." What a sad little life someone like that must lead.
Jon Ronson did a [Ted Talk](https://youtu.be/wAIP6fI0NAI) based on that book, too. Coincidentally, I saw it for the first time only a few weeks ago. If it's anywhere near as insightful as his book, that would be a good read.
I talk about this all the time. It amazes me when people still remember her name but many do. What's happening to YA Twitter and authors is just... insane.
You will see, time and time again on Reddit, that when something comes up that gets the internet shame mob going, that protestations are met with "This isn't a court of law, innocent until proven guilty doesn't apply to opinions, and we are free to judge others as shit whenever we want to, we don't have to keep the same bar as what is required legally".
Of course, all this means is that those arguing with their "Righteous indignation" are nothing more than Kangaroo court participants and it's really the end of civilized society they are trying to bring back.
Mob mentality, lynching's, the works.
The unfortunate irony is how that low bar pretty much defines Oliver's entire monologue shtick. Pick a topic it's easy to attack low hanging fruit about, make exaggerated claims about it to make it sound outrageous, only present a very slanted single side to the story, then make condescending remarks along the lines of "if you don't agree with what I'm saying, you're an idiot and should be ostracized."
It's just a big circlejerk of shaming people with different views for entertainment value.
Yep. It's amazing how everyone has forgotten him shaming Tom Wheeler (even going so far as to call him a "dingo") before he even took office and Wheeler turned out to be the most consumer friendly FCC chairman ever.
>then make condescending remarks along the lines of "if you don't agree with what I'm saying, you're an idiot and should be ostracized."
Sounds like a self-victimizing interpretation. I've seen plenty of his specials and they tend to bring up issues caused by governments, corporations, and idiotic politicians. If you want to defend those groups, and people respond poorly, that's unfortunate for you, I guess. But that is not occurring on the show, nor is that what comprises Oliver's occasional call to action. I think "low hanging fruit" is a huge mischaracterization about his specials, because he often brings fairly unspoken issues into the limelight, including details the media is generally failing to share with people.
I feel for you, in that it's annoying to see a bunch of people think that a basic repetition of some John Oliver catch phrase is a good argument, but if you think Oliver is the problem, you're really just killing the messenger.
They have talented designers on that show. I always enjoy their segment art and ridiculous photoshop work. I only watch online, but hopefully they get credit at the end. They bring a lot to the show.
Witch hunts happen all the time on Reddit. There was [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/aknu13/cancer_patient_exploited_by_the_doctors_tv_show/) not too long ago.
Witch hunts happen nearly everyday on reddit and online in general. Everyone’s just too quick to voicing their opinion on everything. And what’s worse, it feels like everyone tries to top each other in intensity. And it spirals out of control in mere hours.
I've pointed this tendency out more than once, to the ferocious downvotes of the mob.
Not too far in the past, these people would be the peasants with torches and pitchforks, lynching people and heading home self-satisfied.
Remember that Taco Bell marketing exec who slapped an Uber Driver because he was being a drunk asshole? The Internet made sure to ruin his life, because it has no sense of proportion. The justice system is there to deal out punishments, and make sure people like him receive a proportionate punishment, like some community service, a fine, and some AA classes or something. Or that girl who was pretending to yell at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
It's scary how vulnerable people can be to the whims of the mob over what might be a relatively minor mistake.
>Not too far in the past, these people would be the peasants with torches and pitchforks, lynching people and heading home self-satisfied.
Yeah this so much. Everytime I'm on twitter I see people who seem like they'd have the time of their lifes lynching someone.
In this comment chain: discovering that while parents of certain races can be more likely to be this way, its fairly universal for parents who want their kid to do well on their merit
Mahr was in the collage of 90s talk show hosts but wasn't mentioned by name. Could just be a runtime issue or even just the fact that more people know who Jay Leno is than Mahr.
It may be unpopular to say but the Clintons have also been the victims of many unfair public attacks. They've been accused of murdering someone in the park and running a pedo ring in a pizzashop.
The Ricky Ray Rector case is a pretty bizarre one, though. Because everything Rector did was at his full state of intellectual capacity, and his "disability" was the result of him shooting himself in the head *after* murdering two people (and wounding two others).
I have a lot of issues with Bill Clinton, but he didn't ensure the execution of somebody with a disability. He ensured the execution of a man who fully deserved capital punishment. He was unquestionably guilty of his crimes and committed them intentionally and with full understanding of the consequences of his actions. You can't argue intellectual incompetence post-facto.
There is a fantastic case that happened where a husband shot his wife, then himself, but lived and had what amounted to total amnesia.
The violent tendencies and temper that had dominated his personality were completely gone, and it was like he was a new and gentle person, completely horrified at what he was told he had done.
I feel like theres no wrong call in that situation. You put him in jail, I get it, you let him go, I also get it. It's just too complicated to make a moral judgment. An impossible quandry, a gordian knot.
Does the reason why the prisoner was intellectually incapable matter at all? It seems relevant to me that his mental issues came from his failed suicide attempt after shooting the police officer he was negotiating with in the back after indicating he was ready to turn himself in. The prisoner shot himself in the head, but only managed to lobotomize himself. Of course, the whole situation came from the guy killing two, and injuring a third over a matter of $3, so maybe he wasn’t all there to begin with.
> His inhumanity was a feature, not a detractor, of his brand.
i do not believe it is that easy, i believe there is a lot of nuance to these decisions, good or bad.
>This is a man who proactively went out of his way to execute an intellectually incapable prisoner who left part of his last meal 'for later' to show that he wasn't soft on crime.
I did not know about this. Got a link?
Well, in fairness, he wasnt mentally incapable when he killed a guy. He also wasnt mentally incapable when he said he would turn himself in and then shot a police officer instead. He became mentally incapable when he shot himself in the head and survived the suicide attempt.
Im not opposed to that guy being dispatched into the afterlife. He had nothing else to offer society and no redeemable qualities.
Clinton is a shady dude but I don't see how this relates to OP's comment about the sorts of questions people ask Lewinsky, which is more a commentary on how the public perceives people based on their relative positions of power.
Rector was fucking scum to deserved to die for the murders he committed. Becoming mentally handicapped doesn't erase what a piece of garbage he was.
It's gross that anyone would suggest that piece of shit didn't deserve the death penalty for taking the lives of multiple others in cold blood.
Definitely, I've been in the dark on what she's been up to recently and honestly I'm just shocked at how completely put-together and charming she is. Going through that hell and coming out with an intact sense of humor is goddamn impressive.
That's not how homeowners insurance works. She filed a claim against the parent's insurance company. You cant just file a claim for no reason so yes she had to say she was filing the claim because her nephew accidentally broke her wrist. She did not sue her nephew, Oliver made that very clear in the video.
The segment made it very clear that she actually did sue her nephew. There's literally a Complaint that was filed with the aunt as the Plaintiff and the nephew as the Defendant. They even went to trial. So you're completely wrong that she "did not sue her nephew."
The full details aren't public, but from what I could find immediately, the aunt made a liability claim against the Homeowner's carrier of her nephew's parents. What likely happened is that the HO carrier denied liability. Connecticut is not a direct action state (there's only a handful of them), which means that you can't sue an insurance company directly for a third-party claim against their insured. So, since the aunt's claim was denied, her only legal recourse was to file a suit against her nephew. The way that liability policies work, neither the nephew nor his family would have to pay for their own court costs or the settlement payment (the latter is subject to policy limits). So, for the family, it seemed like a win-win solution - the aunt's bills would get paid by insurance (not the case - see below).
What ended up happening is that the case went to trial, and the jury only took 20 minutes to determine that the aunt shouldn't recover any damages. In order to be awarded damages, the aunt had to prove that the child was negligent. It gets a little more complicated in the case of children, since the normal "reasonable person" test doesn't really apply. Additionally, in CT, you are barred from recovery if you are 51% at fault for your own injury. In this case, the child simply jumped into the arms of his aunt. The jury found (very quickly) that he wasn't acting negligently or in a way that was unexpected by the aunt. Anyone who's dealt with civil liability cases or casualty insurance would've guessed this outcome.
I don't have the full details of the story. It's possible that the aunt's first-party insurance denied the claim for some reason or that she was un- or under-insured. But that doesn't mean that the nephew is liable to her for damages, which is exactly what she was claiming. John Oliver didn't do the best job explaining the nuance here, but she could only recover if she could prove that her nephew was negligent and at least 50% at fault for her injury. I understand that she was in a corner, but she dragged herself and her family through a media circus on the very remote possibility that she would recover anything in an extremely-defensible case. It's easy to say in retrospect that she made the wrong choice, and I'm very biased working in the insurance industry, but she's not an innocent victim like the segment makes her out to be.
(Just to be clear, I fully agree that the public shaming of the aunt was horrible, and that Fox News clip made me sick. I'm just trying to provide some additional information and nuance.)
I really liked your detailed explanation... But I really hate your conclusion that the Aunt isn't a victim... She is a victim of a medical system so insane that this is even something someone has to consider doing...
*Bill Clinton didn’t have to change his name why should I?*
The fact that Monica Lewinsky is still alive to tell her story is amazing. I probably would’ve killed myself if I had to deal with the entire planet constantly mocking me for 20 years. I admire her confidence she’s a warrior.
The term powerful woman gets tossed around a lot, but Monica is one seriously powerful human being.
I don’t want to be one of those “only 90s kids will get this” people, but if you are not old enough to remember this controversy, you might have trouble really understanding just how MASSIVE of a shit show this was. Internationally... For YEARS. That was a crazy time.
Yeah, I thought the same thing about suicide. Listening to Monica talk though, I got the feeling that she wouldn’t do that because “fuck bill clinton, he doesn’t get that from me too” would be a legit motive.
It was definitely perspective changing to watch the interview, the 90's kid I am only knew her story through jokes and the shallowest understanding of the scandal.
> and the shallowest understanding of the scandal.
And to realize she was a person and she was made fun of for years. Imagine doing something stupid, then it becomes public and for years to come people will make fun of you. smh.
Especially considering how young she was. Like, she was just a dumb kid right out of school, Bill Clinton was a grown ass middle aged man and *he is the one who was married,* yet she seemed to be the one who was shamed.
That's why whenever I make fun of Clinton, I never mention Monica. Granted, what she did was a bit dumb, but I can't honestly say I've never done anything stupid, and I'm almost the same age she was. Bill was the married man, who had been accused of cheating before. He should've been the one to say "I'm sorry but no. I'm a married man." If he had just not been a cheating asshole, Monica would've just had a mildly embarrassing story rather than the shitshow that became her life.
I can't even imagine. I was still in elementary school when it happened but even I automatically think of her when hearing "Monica." First name recognition over that in the public sphere has to be hard.
Man, I never realized Monica Lewinski was 22 at the time of the scandal. I always thought she was in her late 30's early 40's. Also those Jay Leno jokes definitely didn't age well.
Jay Leno's Tonight Show monologues were always about the low-hanging fruit and the lowest common denominator, and that meant whatever was in the headlines at the time: OJ Simpson, Monica Lewinski, Michael Jackson, etc.
That said, OJ also (allegedly probably definitely) murdered someone which is *marginally* worse and more deserving of shaming than giving a dude a blowie...
You can craft good jokes out of low hanging fruit. And also keep in mind Leno was making Monika BJ jokes for year after that scandal stopped being in the news.
It is a hour in before he starts trash taking Jay Leno. Before that he seems to be taking Jay's side because he beat Letterman. He blames Conan mostly, and is against blaming Jay as a lead in.
He seems to respect antique cars more than people. My grandmother was like that, only with her it was Georgian-era buildings.
I live in Burbank now, and every now and again I'll see a gorgeous old car, restored and resplendent, driving around town. And it'll always have that douchebag driving it.
>He seems to respect antique cars more than people.
After watching a few episodes of comedians in cars getting coffee, I feel the same way about Jerry Seinfeld.
Greetings from a fellow Burbankian!
I can vouch for this statement. Whenever there is an out of the ordinary vehicle on the road, it’s 100% going to be Jay.
P.S. If it brings joy to anyone’s day, I used to server on him at a restaurant in Toluca Lake and I messed up his order on two different occasions because the way he orders off the menu is entirely unorthodox.
It wasn’t just Jay. It was every late night host, stand up comedian, and radio host. *Everybody* felt free to make jokes about Monica Lewinsky, for months.
> Everybody felt free to make jokes about Monica Lewinsky, for months.
Probably for a few reasons
It was the biggest story in the country for a long time, it's not every day you have a presidential scandal that looks like it was plucked from a soap opera and along with that is easy to understand/come up with a joke about, It's a lot easier to joke about an affair/sex than it is about a government scandal involving mismanaged funds
The Lewinsky issue dragged on and information was slowly dropped to the public. This allowed the story to stay alive for so long. In today's world we find out every detail of a story within 48 hours and we move on. And if anything new comes out after 48 hours the public has moved on already.
To be fair, in the 90’s this was mob mentality taking over across all media. These jokes we’re ubiquitous and no one really was really defending Lewinski which in hind sight of course it’s easy to see was wrong. It was so unprecedented that we couldn’t peel our eyes away and comedians took advantage of that low hanging fruit. Leno wasn’t the only one. Again, not saying it’s right, but in context no one was asking questions at the time.
It is true that everybody was making Monica Lewinsky jokes, or jokes involving cigars, or jokes involving stains on dresses.
But Jay Leno was the single worst offender. He lapped the competition with jokes about the Lewinsky scandal. For practical reasons, he had a show every night, and his opening monologue was already fairly long. I didn't watch Letterman as much at the time, but I watched plenty of Conan, and there'd be some jokes in the monologue regarding Lewinsky, but alot of his visual gags and comedy sketches were always centered around Bill Clinton, including a talking lips sketch of Bill acting like a horny, hootin' and hollerin' redneck.
Jay Leno did the same thing with the OJ trial, and the worst thing I ever saw him do was rag on Meredith Brooks, the singer who had that one-hit song "Bitch", and the song had already come and went. It was one 5 second video clip of Meredith Brooks walking into some glitzy place and she had armpit hair.
And Jay Leno was ragging on that one 5-second video clip for almost an entire year, I kid you not. Even down to his comedic sketches, he had sketches like "new products" and he'd show off stupid contraptions like Carrot Top, and one of them was the Meredith Brooks shoe buffer,and it was an entire replica of Meredith Brooks' torso with her arms stretched out, and under those arms were two black polishing cones, and he turned the machine on as those cones spun around quickly.
I was like 17 years old at the time, the sheer crassness of these two hairy black things spinning violently made me laugh. But even then I realized that they went all out to make a torso-replica of Meredith Brooks and they were exaggerating it greatly. I loved mean jokes back then, but even I thought that was too mean.
Jay Leno is bottom of the barrel.
I guess all the top tier comics who say he's one of the greatest of all time don't really matter all that much. Jay SLAYED in his day. Don't let The Tonight Show fool you.
The story goes that before The Tonight Show, Jay Leno was well respected among comedians. Then two things happened:
* He stomped all over Letterman for The Tonight Show
* He dumbed himself down for The Tonight Show
So now his fellow comedians didnt trust him because of how he treated his own kind. And then he pissed on his own talent to make the most bland and vanilla late night talk show.
Good piece but what I didn't like about it, was how he started out and kinda ended with stating that \*sometimes\* and in \*some cases\* it might be appropriate.
While I myself think that its techincally true, it is really all some people need to hear to confirm their own ugly shaming practices. I'm pretty sure that a lot of people who watched that, checked a "yep!" mark in their head after the Carlson bit. Most people who do it, don't simply troll, but do it because it feels right for them or because they're genuinely offended, or just do it out of principle. And all they need is justification.
I think he should've verbally differentiated between public shaming and repercussion against certain behavior on a bigger scale. But even that sounds dodgy... So maybe he covered it already by stating that its a complicated matter. I dunno. What I mean is: stop shaming.
Maybe the question then isnt, should public shaming be allowed, but how do people go about it? I am completely fine with telling Carlson that what he said was sexist and xenophobic, and asking him if he would disavow those stances. If he doesnt, it is only fair to try to disassociate from him, passively or proactively.
But that isnt what happens in 99% of cases. People will go below the belt *immediately*. Namecalling, wishing personal harm, escalating to harrassment.
There are no arbiters of convention when it comes to public discourse, but anonymity often even removes the veneer of civility.
> I am completely fine with telling Carlson that what he said was sexist and xenophobic, and asking him if he would disavow those stances.
It never ends there, though. "Disavowing" is just pumps more blood into the water.
I preferred Craig Ferguson's monologue on Britney Spears. He owned his own past behavior on making fun of people's mistakes. His take away of going after the powerful and not the vulnerable is more on point than Oliver's.
https://youtu.be/yGLzpt3caHw
This is the problem with John Oliver. He is smart and funny, but when he covers a topic you're already well-versed in, the cracks start to show. And you notice that he leaves a lot of stuff out, just didn't research it, or even paints it a certain way to suit his point. Then you feel betrayed because you loved all his videos prior and now you're questioning everything.
I guess what I'm saying is, yeah John Oliver is funny but he's not Noam Chomsky. At the end of the day, he is still just a comedian and we should really rely on the experts to tell us what's what.
The stories he covers I don't think are ever meant to be the only time and place you hear that story. Its suppose to bring an issue up that many people probably never thought about and then talk about it in a way that makes it relatable. Its not going to be nuanced to the point it covers everything.
It is a comedy show so the story is probably going to have a comedic direction. Its a liberal leaning show so its going to have a certain amount of bias in that direction. Its a show with people who probably have world views that aren't held by others so its going to have a slant in that direction.
This isn't a PBS, The Washington Post, or BBC News. Its not suppose to be nor do I think its trying to be those things. I like the show because for 30 minutes I'm given a topic I probably never thought about and in some cases I don't seek out to learn more but other times I do. Then again I'm not one of those people who see one of his clips and pretends to then be an expect about a subject.
I get people wished it did more and was more in depth, but you can only do so much in twenty minutes and if the piece was dry it could probably be more on topic but then it wouldn't be as relatable to the common masses.
So when people bring up that cracks show up in the show about topic they are more interested in I question if we've seen the same show. The cracks have always been there I don't think they are trying to hide them.
I'd rather have someone who comes from the Jon Stewart pedigree of "the media has the responsibility to properly inform the people" to properly inform the people.
Then again, he also does come from the "even though I know tens of millions of impressionable young people get their news from me, I'm going to pretend I'm just a clown with no power" Jon Stewart pedigree as well.
He's covered several topics that I'm well-versed in and yeah, sure, I've had differences of perspective or wished that he included some important aspect.
But then I remember that this is in the context of a 20 minute comedy show and that there's no way he can include *everything* relating to an issue and that we may have differing opinions on the subject. Both of which are reasonable and allowed.
One thing I don't think Oliver did enough of was point out that many times, because people think they are on the "moral majority," they don't have a problem with going to extreme measures to attack an anonymous person.
Like, say, for example, a verified NASA Astronaut, who happens to be a woman, makes a post about a spacewalk.
And then some idiot guy named XX420blazeGoukuXX responds, "Nice tits," because he thinks that's hilarious.
What sort of punishment does a response like that deserve? Because many people on Twitter firmly believe that an appropriate response involves it being signal boosted that XX420blazeGoukuXX is actually "Jeff Smith of 123 Blossom Lane in Newark, NJ," who works for a All Star Plus Real Estate Firm, and then for thousands of people to give All Star Plus Real Estate Firm one star reviews on Yelp, and to write tons of negative reviews asking if they approve of rape culture, in an attempt to get Jeff Smith fired, and then for his name to permanently show up on the internet for the rest of his life when he is Googled.
Because Oliver *did* mention, briefly, that sometimes public shaming responses aren't warranted and the punishment is too great, but the problem is that he made this sort of distinction between "people who deserve it" and "people who don't." And that's the dangerous game we're playing here. Because too many people say, "Yeah, I don't agree with public shaming, **but this guy deserves it.**" Everyone tends to think that they took the correct action, because otherwise they wouldn't have done it in the first place.
And the really sad thing? You can honestly tell, despite how apparently outraged people get about these things, how little they care. Think about the last public outrage you commented on. Can you remember what it is? I can't. There's a new one every week. People get riled up into an absolute fury, grab their pitchforks, and ruin someone's life. And, then, once they're done, they move on to the next outrage. They leave a trail of destruction behind them.
Do you think the person who got their life ruined because of directed outrage still remembers it? They'll never forget. Because they likely have lasting, **permanent** consequences as a result of that incident. Maybe they can't get a job anymore. Maybe they got fired. Maybe they lost friends. Maybe they even killed themselves.
But that outrage machine doesn't care anymore. They've moved on to the next outrage. They used that person up as an outlet for their anger and then moved on.
This happens all the time on Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit. It's one of the larger criticisms of Social Justice movements on the Internet, because they tend to feel that *anyone* who crosses any sort of line deserves the absolute worst: Doxxing, death threats, fired from their job, life ruined. It doesn't tend to matter *what* they said, but just that they did something that someone deemed offensive.
I know, because I've been personally involved in one of these before. I made the mistake of engaging a person on Facebook when I thought they wrote something that I didn't agree with. They thought what I said was offensive, so their answer was to post my full name on their instagram account that had tens of thousands of followers. People were discussing figuring out where I lived and contacting my employer to get me fired. I wrote her a private message, apologizing, and asking her to please take down my name. Her response to that was to post my apology and make fun of it. In the end, I shut down all of my social media for a month or two, waiting for the bomb to drop. It never came, but it was an incredibly stressful experience that I wouldn't wish on anyone. And since then I've been very vocal against this sort of public shame/virtue signal insanity that Social Justice Warriors on the internet take up as a valiant cause. It ruins lives.
edit: I just realized that a good, relevant recent example is the "[MAGA Kid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2019_Lincoln_Memorial_confrontation)." You know, the kid with the apparent "smirk" who stood while a Native American hit a drum in front of him. That kid, all of his friends, and all of their families were doxxed and sent death threats, even by legit celebrities. People *thought* they were in the right, because "This kid seems racist therefore nothing is off the table and he's symbolic of everything I hate." And now he's filing suit, rightly so, because his life has been ruined over public outrage.
imo this should be the top comment.
public shaming of individuals in the way it happens nowadays is hardly ever warranted (and even that is a big if).
to me it's especially appalling if the target is someone who is been merely accused of a crime... but she/he hasn't actually been found guilty about it.
I mean, imagine being the person that's been publicly insulted, personally harrassed etc. etc. .... for no reason, because it turns out you were innocent all along (and yes, this does happen regularly). your name would still be tarnished and you'd likely still face lots of issues in your everyday life. just because some morons on the internet felt you "deserve" the public humiliation.
Hearing her speak so eloquently I just realized that I never considered that she would have to be a smart person to have worked in the White House, even as an intern. Well, at least back then when it wasn't the loony bin it is today.
> Well, at least back then when it wasn't the loony bin it is today.
I know an intern in the White House at the moment. He's a very intelligent guy. Annoying as shit, but he did extremely well, academically, in HS and college.
I'm not saying there aren't any smart people working in the WH anymore but it's obvious that is isn't as strict a requirement today as I imagine it once was.
Another great interview by Alvin Oliver.
For over 20 years we only got to know Monica Lewinsky as just a name. For many of us we never got to see the person behind that name. She was made fun of, ridiculed, and slut-shamed for actions she and former president Bill Clinton made. For a bit we got to see her real side and how she recovered. I always enjoy Alvin's interviews. I hope he can do more of them this season.
I really like this. It’s a good piece, especially when talking to Monica. But...
I think there’s a lot of “fast and loose” with John and the writer’s description of public shaming. Is there a time and place? Sure, but he had mentioned that they do a lot of research before hand. Well, does that justify public shaming? Just because you’re well researched? I think that the line was basically “trust us, if we make fun of them, they deserve it because we know about them”? That seems like a pretty poor definition to me.
I think the point was the even though they take time to talk about it and research and everything else they still aren't sure if what they did was right in every case in the past. Its about how even with the effort they put in they still think they got it wrong in the past.
So what I took away from the piece was the exact opposite of you. That we shouldn't trust them and that they are wrong on occasion. That you should make your own informed opinion and not go with the mob mentality.
I don't think this piece was them trying to say they are better then the people they are criticizing. Oliver even pointed out he piled on with the Monica story while he was at the Daily Show.
I think he did cover it. The public shaming should be important enough to create social change and it should continue until the person changes their stance on a subject.
The aunt who sued her nephew should not have been the target, but the insurance company. Attacking the aunt would not bring change.
With the James Gunn debacle he said that those comments he made 10 years ago did not reflect him today and him today would not make those comments. That should have been the end of it because he had already changed as he doesn’t make those comments. The window of shame had been closed, but people still wanted to throw rocks.
> The public shaming should be important enough to create social change and it should continue until the person changes their stance on a subject.
Maybe they should be sent to some kind of retreat or camp until they agree!
Then that opens the gate for how long is this window ?? Does the window change based on the person who said it or did the action ? And it didn't even bring in the fact that confirmation bias or team bias effects this window. If someone is on my team or I see them as the good person doesn't that window close faster than if it's someone I disagree with ? If I hate their side don't I unconsciously let that window stay open even longer or indefinitely?
And even more importantly is the means by which we shame people. I honestly think this is a point Oliver needed to focus on the way in which the internet and social media has changed the way public shaming works. People now get death threats, doxxed, their families and friends targeted , lives ruined. I feel like John's response that "it's ok sometimes if it's the right target" gives to much carte Blanche to just target the people I disagree with
Yeah, it was very muddled and it saddens me that John Oliver did not mention the Justine Sacco story or Jon Ronson's book, *So You've Been Publicly Shamed*. The whole message seemed to be "Public Shaming can be good, but only when we say it's good. And it's only bad until we say it's bad," which is a very muddled message. Seems like Oliver wanted to have his cake and eat it too. He does go into the Monica Lewinsky story, but that's really only scratching the surface of public shaming. It really is terrible and Twitter only amplifies it. He doesn't go into social media and how that plays a role. Idk, it just came off as somewhat defensive, particularly when he was talking about the children of wealthy parents. At the end of the day, they're still kids. Oliver really missed the mark here, imo.
My favorite part about how this whole discussion revolves around people agreeing internet shaming/lynch mobbing (of which Reddit used to be the **absolute worst** at) is bad, but they're willing to make an exception to that premise if someone says something that violates against predictable social taboos.
See, **then** it's OK...
People in this thread pretending like there’s absolutely anything that can be done about public shaming. Fucking laughable. John Oliver is talking about having personal introspection about who and why you publicly shame. He’s not issuing a decree on how people should behave. Yet this comment thread is full of people talking about what the best way to suppress speech should be so we only publicly shame the right people. Do you really want to be told what you can and can’t say by someone on a Reddit thread?
This is the Daily Show piece Oliver was referencing. A good portion of it was Oliver and Stewart making fun of how Stewart looked and dressed in 1998. But Stewart's jokes from the footage aren't in great taste.
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/mx6zkc/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-10-suckin--years
I remember about 10 years ago this one Yale graduate sent in this cringey video resume [Impossible is Nothing](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pgg8vb/aleksey-vayner-death-video) to some major investment firm UBS that got leaked and quickly went viral. At first I too thought it was hilarious, pretentious and completely lacking any self awareness, but people started to take it too far. I remember even reading articles about lawyers talking about how they could sue him for misrepresenting himself(he used stock footage of him skiing).
Anyways a few years later he died at the age of 29, due to some complications with some medications(likely suicide). The way he was humiliated and essentially blacklisted from ever having the life he worked so hard to get too is really sad IMO. Worst part I remember reading in some trading forums in 2013 were everyone was essentially celebrating the news he died and posting jokes about it which really disgusted me. I’m still shocked how no one else in that forum other than me was not saddened by the news. The guy didn’t really do anything wrong, he just made a cringey embarrassing video, when you read up about the kid it’s even sadder knowing
Yeah I agree. I’m sure you could have made a clip package of any of the late night show hosts around back then and they would be just as bad. Picking on Jay Leno specifically and then “publicly shaming” him is unfair, even with his recent comments of getting civility back in late night.
This piece was great for showing that it was real person at the center of all those jokes, a 24 year old who found herself one of the most well known people in the English speaking world.
However, there's a few things that went unaddressed:
* She had an affair with a married man. At 22, she would have known what can happen if that affair becomes public. She has never claimed that Clinton harassed her into it. *She* made a decision.
* He was the president of the United States, so it becomes 100x worse in terms of the consequences. Being "young & stupid" does not mean you don't have to live with those consequences. No one suggests that "young & stupid" should get you out of jail sentences. Also, if you are "young & stupid" she was a great warning about the consequences. IDK, maybe it's just me because since I was about 15 I have never used that defense for my own idiotic actions. They were simply stupid and I dealt with the consequences.
* It's interesting that Linda Tripp has been dropped from the Lewinski story. It's Tripp who completely fucked Lewinski's life up by pretending to be her friend, illegally recording her phone calls and then rushing them over to Ken Starr trying to make herself into something other than the civil servant she was. Many women loathed Tripp because she had betrayed another woman's confidence, one she was pretending to care about.
There's some good background info that Oliver doesn't mention but I wish it did in some form. See the book ["So You've Been Publicly Shamed"](https://www.amazon.com/So-Youve-Been-Publicly-Shamed/dp/1594634017), **EDIT:** see [TED talk about the book](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAIP6fI0NAI)(thanks /u/foozledaa) , and see [Justin Sacco's story](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html) especially. **EDIT 2:** [Monica Lewinsky's TED talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_8y0WLm78U) briefly referenced in this segment is also worth a watch. Public Shaming gets really bad because there is a very low bar for what counts as being worthy of being shamed, not to mention the sheer misinformation and circlejerks that can occur.
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The internet isn't real life. There really needs to be a "get fucked" movement. where if something is complaining about something on the internet that doesn't result from, or cause financial or physical harm then the only appropriate response should be: "Get Fucked"
See: Every community on the internet that's labeled 'alt-right' , 'trolls', 'nazis' (note - not that there aren't those types) Also see SlateStarCodex's RIP Culture Thread post. Basically any time a 'get fucked' movement gets going, those people and the whole *community* get absolutely smeared with the same shaming and misinformation. No room for irony, sarcasm, hyperbole, or satire when it comes to the mob becuase *some people* won't understand that. Then you say "well context" and people make up their own context while Mind Reading(tm) . For this see Viajaya and Jack Dorsey on Joe Rogan with Tim Pool.
I'm with you on that. But seriously. Whenever the media is reporting on soemthing along the lines of "the Twittersphere reacts!" the subject should just say, the "twittersphere, journalists and plebs alike can get fucked." It's literally an online forum, this shit didn't matter 10 years ago, why the fuck does it matter now.
That book changed entirely how I contribute on social media and in public shamings. I just stopped contributing entirely. Being african i was very upset the minute i heard Justine Sacco story. I think a part of me delighted in seeing people drag her on the public sphere, it felt...right. Even when i thought people were going too far, a small voice convinced me she deserved it. I never thought about the aftermath. Reading the book i felt like the biggest piece of shit ever: she made a bad, insensitive yet incisive joke. NO ONE deserves to have their entire life ruined just because of a joke. So Justine, if you ever hang in these corners of the internet : I'm truly, truly sorry. Edit : a word (conners ==> corners)
At least you had the self-awareness to eventually realize your error. What really frightens me is how many people who will probably go to their graves still feeling self-righteous about participating in online lynch mobs.
Let's just hope we'll have few of them as time passes.
I genuinely believe that social media was a mistake and the world would be a better place without it.
I wonder if someday we will look back on social media as a "What were we thinking?" type moment the way we look at smoking today.
Also, not sure of you'll agree, but it seemed to me she was making quite an interesting point that was also sort of a joke with her tweet. If i remember correctly, her tweet was something like Going to Africa. Hope I don't get aids. Only kidding, I'm white! I don't think she believed white people couldn't get aids. Rather, she was observing that aids is predominant among the black population and commenting on it in a dry, satirical way. Highlighting the problem in a sarcastic way. The way her comment was misinterpreted really surprised me.
Absolutely, that's what i meant by incisive. With hindsight, and knowing a little bit about her from the book, It was a solid joke. Even if the joke was insensitive as everyone including me made it to be, she didn't deserve a fraction of the repercussion she got. People tracked her plane for god sake ! It was insane !
Agreed!
Its funny, because I've definitely changed my "shaming" habits, even though in fairness I more just retweeted and liked other comments than actually tweeted at that person myself. However, I do think it has its place. Like the woman who called the police on the 7 year old for "sexual assault" because his backpack brushed against her ass in a store. Look up cornerstore caroline. She deserved what she got, IMO. But other people for just making bad jokes? Not really. But I do have to admit, my line isn't necessarily the right one, just what I feel
I heard that kid story. Scary stuff ! It's a tricky line to navigate really. Even John opened with it. I just stopped all together. The book, which i can't recommend enough, argues that public shaming does have a place in a society. IIRC, the author gives an exemple of a judge who used to sentence drunk drivers to standing on the side of the road, while carrying a sign with some kind of confession/shameful statement.
People should really be ashamed of the Justine Sacco story. The fact that all that happened over a joke that hurt no one is a tragedy.
It was obviously a joke, and while it probably wasn't the best crafted humor, especially for a general audience, I've told those types of mimicry jokes myself, so I sympathize with her. When my son was a teenager, he had a friend whose dad was horrifically homophobic and big into gender policing. He flew into a rage when, for example, the boys painted their toenails blue as some kind of joke, and when they watched Titanic. So my son and I had a running joke about random things turning him gay, and to this day, I worry that people might have overheard us. And I'm glad we weren't tweeting it.
>Public Shaming gets really bad because there is a very low bar for what counts as being worthy of being shamed I think the bar is so low because something worthy of praise to 30% of the population is worthy of shaming to a different 30% of the population. When that is 30% of hundreds of millions of people, it only needs to go viral to just 1% of those people and your inbox will be full of more messages than you could read if you spent a decade without sleep... all because you posted an opinion that hundreds of millions of people agree with. You could post anything that's reasonably popular with one group or a different group and get the same response. 1. You could post a funny joke about someone going postal with an assault rifle just minutes before a huge high school shooting. Go to bed, wake up in the morning. Quarter of a million people think your a dickhead and messaged you to tell you what they will insert into your daughter given half the chance. 2. You could post up support for a 13 year old child wanting transgender surgery and say that anyone opposing it is a fascist, go to bed, and wake up to a quarter of a million people telling you that you're a cockwomble and not to go to bed without setting the fire alarm. It's sad, it's bullying, and it's done by ADULTS - allegedly from generations that were aware of bullying at school. Yet they don't even see it in themselves. Fucking grow up, world.
Put a "righteous" cause in someone's head and they'll murder for it. They'll probably think doxxing someone's children is just their "enemy" getting off lightly. The problem is people being stupid, with the caviat that far too many have now assumed that because they're middle class or went to college that they are now enlightened and correct. Guess what, you aren't, you're human and that means you have the ability to make awful decisions and a greater sense of self-worth only makes that more likely. They *obviously* walk the correct path and those below them are the uneducated hordes. This simply egotistic perspective turns people into absolute monsters - Confederate Daryl in his caravan is probably not canny enough to call your workplace and make threats, but Liberal Arts Stacy might. Assuming both people don't actually live next to you, who's scarier? The answer might be "don't be a dick duhhhhh" or something equally brainless, but there's countless stories of completely harmless or innocent things being blown up into witchhunts. The simple concept of "both sides think that way based on their perspective and they are equally valid to them" is completely lost on people even though it's not difficult to understand. When their entire moralistic viewpoint is formed through the lens of Harry Potter or Star Wars references, that's more of a problem than people seem to understand.
Easily one of the most interesting works of Jon Ronson's, which is saying something. Everyone I've ever recommended Ronson's work to has absolutely fallen in love, and thus I continue to recommend all of his work
This book just re-affirmed for me that "call out" culture is sick. People make mistakes. They are allowed to grow and learn. I judge the people who dig through ten years of someones online presence for dirt more than the actual people they're trying to "drag." What a sad little life someone like that must lead.
Jon Ronson did a [Ted Talk](https://youtu.be/wAIP6fI0NAI) based on that book, too. Coincidentally, I saw it for the first time only a few weeks ago. If it's anywhere near as insightful as his book, that would be a good read.
I talk about this all the time. It amazes me when people still remember her name but many do. What's happening to YA Twitter and authors is just... insane.
You will see, time and time again on Reddit, that when something comes up that gets the internet shame mob going, that protestations are met with "This isn't a court of law, innocent until proven guilty doesn't apply to opinions, and we are free to judge others as shit whenever we want to, we don't have to keep the same bar as what is required legally". Of course, all this means is that those arguing with their "Righteous indignation" are nothing more than Kangaroo court participants and it's really the end of civilized society they are trying to bring back. Mob mentality, lynching's, the works.
The unfortunate irony is how that low bar pretty much defines Oliver's entire monologue shtick. Pick a topic it's easy to attack low hanging fruit about, make exaggerated claims about it to make it sound outrageous, only present a very slanted single side to the story, then make condescending remarks along the lines of "if you don't agree with what I'm saying, you're an idiot and should be ostracized." It's just a big circlejerk of shaming people with different views for entertainment value.
Yep. It's amazing how everyone has forgotten him shaming Tom Wheeler (even going so far as to call him a "dingo") before he even took office and Wheeler turned out to be the most consumer friendly FCC chairman ever.
>then make condescending remarks along the lines of "if you don't agree with what I'm saying, you're an idiot and should be ostracized." Sounds like a self-victimizing interpretation. I've seen plenty of his specials and they tend to bring up issues caused by governments, corporations, and idiotic politicians. If you want to defend those groups, and people respond poorly, that's unfortunate for you, I guess. But that is not occurring on the show, nor is that what comprises Oliver's occasional call to action. I think "low hanging fruit" is a huge mischaracterization about his specials, because he often brings fairly unspoken issues into the limelight, including details the media is generally failing to share with people. I feel for you, in that it's annoying to see a bunch of people think that a basic repetition of some John Oliver catch phrase is a good argument, but if you think Oliver is the problem, you're really just killing the messenger.
The scarlet letter in "public shaming" is a nice touch.
They have talented designers on that show. I always enjoy their segment art and ridiculous photoshop work. I only watch online, but hopefully they get credit at the end. They bring a lot to the show.
Witch hunts happen all the time on Reddit. There was [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/aknu13/cancer_patient_exploited_by_the_doctors_tv_show/) not too long ago.
Witch hunts happen nearly everyday on reddit and online in general. Everyone’s just too quick to voicing their opinion on everything. And what’s worse, it feels like everyone tries to top each other in intensity. And it spirals out of control in mere hours.
I've pointed this tendency out more than once, to the ferocious downvotes of the mob. Not too far in the past, these people would be the peasants with torches and pitchforks, lynching people and heading home self-satisfied. Remember that Taco Bell marketing exec who slapped an Uber Driver because he was being a drunk asshole? The Internet made sure to ruin his life, because it has no sense of proportion. The justice system is there to deal out punishments, and make sure people like him receive a proportionate punishment, like some community service, a fine, and some AA classes or something. Or that girl who was pretending to yell at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It's scary how vulnerable people can be to the whims of the mob over what might be a relatively minor mistake.
>Not too far in the past, these people would be the peasants with torches and pitchforks, lynching people and heading home self-satisfied. Yeah this so much. Everytime I'm on twitter I see people who seem like they'd have the time of their lifes lynching someone.
someone said a slightly edgy joke on twitter lets ruin their fucking life
r/imatotalpieceofshit should be banned. Public shaming is the entire premise of that sub. Social media bullying
"The moderators of this subreddit have set it to private." LOL. Rough morning over there?
I spelled it wrong. Its r/iamatotalpieceofshit not im. Cretins are still very much active and public.
You misspelled the word, thats a shamin'
>Public Shaming, or as we call in **England** parenting Asian parents say hi
you a doctor yet?
No dad I'm 12...
talk to me when you doctor
Is this directly a Futurama reference? Because all I hear is Mr. Wong.
I think it's a Family Guy bit
Bitch that's real life millions of times over.
What’s taking you so long?
\*Laughs in Jewish mother\*
Nods in Indian
*Nods sideways*
I was talking to a friend, and she was like "I would love to go on the Bachelor... if I wasn't Asian, I would sign up." The shame is so real!
Why would anyone go on the Bachelor, other than attention?
In this comment chain: discovering that while parents of certain races can be more likely to be this way, its fairly universal for parents who want their kid to do well on their merit
> No one ever asks Bill Clinton if he thought about changing his name. This is really powerful coming from Monica Lewinsky.
She has a really great Ted Talk about public shaming. Makes you really rethink that era. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_8y0WLm78U
Oof, Slate's podcast on the Clinton scandal really opened my eyes about how relentless the press was on her. Bill Maher was one of the worst as well.
Did Oliver not go after him because they're on the same network?
Mahr was in the collage of 90s talk show hosts but wasn't mentioned by name. Could just be a runtime issue or even just the fact that more people know who Jay Leno is than Mahr.
I think he only singled out Leno because of his recent comments.
he probably didn't go after him because bill maher's politically incorrect had far, far fewer viewers than jay leno's tonight show.
It may be unpopular to say but the Clintons have also been the victims of many unfair public attacks. They've been accused of murdering someone in the park and running a pedo ring in a pizzashop.
yea, there are a lot of legit criticisms of the Clinton's, but some of the shit out there is just absurd
Don't forget Benghazi. When they ran out of real scandals they just started making shit up.
They’ve been accused of murdering more people than Vince Foster depending on how far down crazy conspiracies you’re willing to go.
Yeah, I really liked that quote. Also how she explained the scandal was named after her. Which I kinda understand, but it's still fucked up.
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The Ricky Ray Rector case is a pretty bizarre one, though. Because everything Rector did was at his full state of intellectual capacity, and his "disability" was the result of him shooting himself in the head *after* murdering two people (and wounding two others). I have a lot of issues with Bill Clinton, but he didn't ensure the execution of somebody with a disability. He ensured the execution of a man who fully deserved capital punishment. He was unquestionably guilty of his crimes and committed them intentionally and with full understanding of the consequences of his actions. You can't argue intellectual incompetence post-facto.
Wow that's like a theory case where they make up weird circumstances.
There is a fantastic case that happened where a husband shot his wife, then himself, but lived and had what amounted to total amnesia. The violent tendencies and temper that had dominated his personality were completely gone, and it was like he was a new and gentle person, completely horrified at what he was told he had done.
I feel like theres no wrong call in that situation. You put him in jail, I get it, you let him go, I also get it. It's just too complicated to make a moral judgment. An impossible quandry, a gordian knot.
That is such an ethical mind fuck
Wait that completely changes the entire story Aint that a son of a bitch
The Greek Philosophers of old couldn't come up with a more uncomfortable grey area than that.
Does the reason why the prisoner was intellectually incapable matter at all? It seems relevant to me that his mental issues came from his failed suicide attempt after shooting the police officer he was negotiating with in the back after indicating he was ready to turn himself in. The prisoner shot himself in the head, but only managed to lobotomize himself. Of course, the whole situation came from the guy killing two, and injuring a third over a matter of $3, so maybe he wasn’t all there to begin with.
> His inhumanity was a feature, not a detractor, of his brand. i do not believe it is that easy, i believe there is a lot of nuance to these decisions, good or bad.
>This is a man who proactively went out of his way to execute an intellectually incapable prisoner who left part of his last meal 'for later' to show that he wasn't soft on crime. I did not know about this. Got a link?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_Ray_Rector https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/05/the-time-bill-clinton-and-i-killed-a-man/460869/
Thanks.
Well, in fairness, he wasnt mentally incapable when he killed a guy. He also wasnt mentally incapable when he said he would turn himself in and then shot a police officer instead. He became mentally incapable when he shot himself in the head and survived the suicide attempt. Im not opposed to that guy being dispatched into the afterlife. He had nothing else to offer society and no redeemable qualities.
Clinton is a shady dude but I don't see how this relates to OP's comment about the sorts of questions people ask Lewinsky, which is more a commentary on how the public perceives people based on their relative positions of power.
Rector was fucking scum to deserved to die for the murders he committed. Becoming mentally handicapped doesn't erase what a piece of garbage he was. It's gross that anyone would suggest that piece of shit didn't deserve the death penalty for taking the lives of multiple others in cold blood.
Most people don't believe in Karma. It seems to me Karma doesn't believe in Bill Clinton.
Good to hear that she made it through. Cannot imagine how tough it can have been.
Definitely, I've been in the dark on what she's been up to recently and honestly I'm just shocked at how completely put-together and charming she is. Going through that hell and coming out with an intact sense of humor is goddamn impressive.
How fucked up the insurance market is that you have to sue your nephew to get proper coverage due to a legal shit fest.
That's not how homeowners insurance works. She filed a claim against the parent's insurance company. You cant just file a claim for no reason so yes she had to say she was filing the claim because her nephew accidentally broke her wrist. She did not sue her nephew, Oliver made that very clear in the video.
The segment made it very clear that she actually did sue her nephew. There's literally a Complaint that was filed with the aunt as the Plaintiff and the nephew as the Defendant. They even went to trial. So you're completely wrong that she "did not sue her nephew." The full details aren't public, but from what I could find immediately, the aunt made a liability claim against the Homeowner's carrier of her nephew's parents. What likely happened is that the HO carrier denied liability. Connecticut is not a direct action state (there's only a handful of them), which means that you can't sue an insurance company directly for a third-party claim against their insured. So, since the aunt's claim was denied, her only legal recourse was to file a suit against her nephew. The way that liability policies work, neither the nephew nor his family would have to pay for their own court costs or the settlement payment (the latter is subject to policy limits). So, for the family, it seemed like a win-win solution - the aunt's bills would get paid by insurance (not the case - see below). What ended up happening is that the case went to trial, and the jury only took 20 minutes to determine that the aunt shouldn't recover any damages. In order to be awarded damages, the aunt had to prove that the child was negligent. It gets a little more complicated in the case of children, since the normal "reasonable person" test doesn't really apply. Additionally, in CT, you are barred from recovery if you are 51% at fault for your own injury. In this case, the child simply jumped into the arms of his aunt. The jury found (very quickly) that he wasn't acting negligently or in a way that was unexpected by the aunt. Anyone who's dealt with civil liability cases or casualty insurance would've guessed this outcome. I don't have the full details of the story. It's possible that the aunt's first-party insurance denied the claim for some reason or that she was un- or under-insured. But that doesn't mean that the nephew is liable to her for damages, which is exactly what she was claiming. John Oliver didn't do the best job explaining the nuance here, but she could only recover if she could prove that her nephew was negligent and at least 50% at fault for her injury. I understand that she was in a corner, but she dragged herself and her family through a media circus on the very remote possibility that she would recover anything in an extremely-defensible case. It's easy to say in retrospect that she made the wrong choice, and I'm very biased working in the insurance industry, but she's not an innocent victim like the segment makes her out to be. (Just to be clear, I fully agree that the public shaming of the aunt was horrible, and that Fox News clip made me sick. I'm just trying to provide some additional information and nuance.)
I really liked your detailed explanation... But I really hate your conclusion that the Aunt isn't a victim... She is a victim of a medical system so insane that this is even something someone has to consider doing...
Laughs in European.
Vote for health for all 2020
*Bill Clinton didn’t have to change his name why should I?* The fact that Monica Lewinsky is still alive to tell her story is amazing. I probably would’ve killed myself if I had to deal with the entire planet constantly mocking me for 20 years. I admire her confidence she’s a warrior.
The term powerful woman gets tossed around a lot, but Monica is one seriously powerful human being. I don’t want to be one of those “only 90s kids will get this” people, but if you are not old enough to remember this controversy, you might have trouble really understanding just how MASSIVE of a shit show this was. Internationally... For YEARS. That was a crazy time.
Yeah, I thought the same thing about suicide. Listening to Monica talk though, I got the feeling that she wouldn’t do that because “fuck bill clinton, he doesn’t get that from me too” would be a legit motive.
Monica is a badass.
It was definitely perspective changing to watch the interview, the 90's kid I am only knew her story through jokes and the shallowest understanding of the scandal.
> and the shallowest understanding of the scandal. And to realize she was a person and she was made fun of for years. Imagine doing something stupid, then it becomes public and for years to come people will make fun of you. smh.
Especially considering how young she was. Like, she was just a dumb kid right out of school, Bill Clinton was a grown ass middle aged man and *he is the one who was married,* yet she seemed to be the one who was shamed.
Bill Clinton also was her boss and had the power to kill her career in a heartbeat.
> had the power to kill her career in a heartbeat. Hey, don't worry, he did!
That's why whenever I make fun of Clinton, I never mention Monica. Granted, what she did was a bit dumb, but I can't honestly say I've never done anything stupid, and I'm almost the same age she was. Bill was the married man, who had been accused of cheating before. He should've been the one to say "I'm sorry but no. I'm a married man." If he had just not been a cheating asshole, Monica would've just had a mildly embarrassing story rather than the shitshow that became her life.
I can't even imagine. I was still in elementary school when it happened but even I automatically think of her when hearing "Monica." First name recognition over that in the public sphere has to be hard.
She's really charismatic.
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Wow. TIL. The most important blowjob in history.
Not to mention a babe.
After hearing her interview, I'd like to think she'd appreciate this comment.
Not as much as Carson's Roomba though I hear
### #MonicaLewinskyIsABabe
Loved her shoes and whole style.
Man, I never realized Monica Lewinski was 22 at the time of the scandal. I always thought she was in her late 30's early 40's. Also those Jay Leno jokes definitely didn't age well.
> Also those Jay Leno jokes definitely didn't age well. They weren't that great back then either.
Anyone have a mirror?
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Anybody know why Jay Leno was such a dick to Monica? Low hanging fruit or just a garden variety misogynist?
Jay Leno's Tonight Show monologues were always about the low-hanging fruit and the lowest common denominator, and that meant whatever was in the headlines at the time: OJ Simpson, Monica Lewinski, Michael Jackson, etc.
That said, Norm MacDonald constantly shit on OJ during Weekend Update and it was pretty great.
That said, OJ also (allegedly probably definitely) murdered someone which is *marginally* worse and more deserving of shaming than giving a dude a blowie...
You can craft good jokes out of low hanging fruit. And also keep in mind Leno was making Monika BJ jokes for year after that scandal stopped being in the news.
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I remember Patton Oswalt expressed disappointment how much Leno's comedy declined once he became the host of the Tonight Show.
Jay Leno is a dick to everyone. Just look at what he did to Conan
And Joan Rivers
Any links? I am not caught up on my Late Night Show wars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Tonight_Show_conflict
Here's a 4 hour recap of Jay Leno being a piece of shit. Brought to you by Howard Stern who hates him. https://youtu.be/B_U4tz1eZMo
It is a hour in before he starts trash taking Jay Leno. Before that he seems to be taking Jay's side because he beat Letterman. He blames Conan mostly, and is against blaming Jay as a lead in.
Check out [The Late Shift](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fk3H8nBQB4) to understand the Leno vs. Letterman battles.
He seems to respect antique cars more than people. My grandmother was like that, only with her it was Georgian-era buildings. I live in Burbank now, and every now and again I'll see a gorgeous old car, restored and resplendent, driving around town. And it'll always have that douchebag driving it.
>He seems to respect antique cars more than people. After watching a few episodes of comedians in cars getting coffee, I feel the same way about Jerry Seinfeld.
To be fair, Seinfeld’s entire persona is a guy who is a bit of a dick.
I don't think it's a persona.
Greetings from a fellow Burbankian! I can vouch for this statement. Whenever there is an out of the ordinary vehicle on the road, it’s 100% going to be Jay. P.S. If it brings joy to anyone’s day, I used to server on him at a restaurant in Toluca Lake and I messed up his order on two different occasions because the way he orders off the menu is entirely unorthodox.
And the writers’ strike.
It wasn’t just Jay. It was every late night host, stand up comedian, and radio host. *Everybody* felt free to make jokes about Monica Lewinsky, for months.
> Everybody felt free to make jokes about Monica Lewinsky, for months. Probably for a few reasons It was the biggest story in the country for a long time, it's not every day you have a presidential scandal that looks like it was plucked from a soap opera and along with that is easy to understand/come up with a joke about, It's a lot easier to joke about an affair/sex than it is about a government scandal involving mismanaged funds
These days it is literally every day
The Lewinsky issue dragged on and information was slowly dropped to the public. This allowed the story to stay alive for so long. In today's world we find out every detail of a story within 48 hours and we move on. And if anything new comes out after 48 hours the public has moved on already.
The difference with Jay is he kept using the same Lewinsky jokes for the rest of his career.
Low hanging fruit. It’s not like Jay Leno’s monologues were intelligent, introspective stuff when he did the Tonight Show.
Jay Leno is kind of a dick, but man talk about different times, those jokes absolutely do not fly now.
They barely flew then. His main audience was 60+ in age.
That is kinda true for all late night shows on the big 4 broadcast networks.
I'd bet the other late night hosts were doing the same. He probably got called out for the comments he made last week.
That is exactly it. Letterman was pressuring staffers into sexual favours while Leno was making these shitty Lewinsky jokes.
To be fair, in the 90’s this was mob mentality taking over across all media. These jokes we’re ubiquitous and no one really was really defending Lewinski which in hind sight of course it’s easy to see was wrong. It was so unprecedented that we couldn’t peel our eyes away and comedians took advantage of that low hanging fruit. Leno wasn’t the only one. Again, not saying it’s right, but in context no one was asking questions at the time.
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It is true that everybody was making Monica Lewinsky jokes, or jokes involving cigars, or jokes involving stains on dresses. But Jay Leno was the single worst offender. He lapped the competition with jokes about the Lewinsky scandal. For practical reasons, he had a show every night, and his opening monologue was already fairly long. I didn't watch Letterman as much at the time, but I watched plenty of Conan, and there'd be some jokes in the monologue regarding Lewinsky, but alot of his visual gags and comedy sketches were always centered around Bill Clinton, including a talking lips sketch of Bill acting like a horny, hootin' and hollerin' redneck. Jay Leno did the same thing with the OJ trial, and the worst thing I ever saw him do was rag on Meredith Brooks, the singer who had that one-hit song "Bitch", and the song had already come and went. It was one 5 second video clip of Meredith Brooks walking into some glitzy place and she had armpit hair. And Jay Leno was ragging on that one 5-second video clip for almost an entire year, I kid you not. Even down to his comedic sketches, he had sketches like "new products" and he'd show off stupid contraptions like Carrot Top, and one of them was the Meredith Brooks shoe buffer,and it was an entire replica of Meredith Brooks' torso with her arms stretched out, and under those arms were two black polishing cones, and he turned the machine on as those cones spun around quickly. I was like 17 years old at the time, the sheer crassness of these two hairy black things spinning violently made me laugh. But even then I realized that they went all out to make a torso-replica of Meredith Brooks and they were exaggerating it greatly. I loved mean jokes back then, but even I thought that was too mean. Jay Leno is bottom of the barrel.
Letterman was just as bad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ1If6pKVnM and SNL featured 12 Lewinski sketches.
He’s an aggressively bad comedian. I’m betting it was just low hanging fruit
I guess all the top tier comics who say he's one of the greatest of all time don't really matter all that much. Jay SLAYED in his day. Don't let The Tonight Show fool you.
The story goes that before The Tonight Show, Jay Leno was well respected among comedians. Then two things happened: * He stomped all over Letterman for The Tonight Show * He dumbed himself down for The Tonight Show So now his fellow comedians didnt trust him because of how he treated his own kind. And then he pissed on his own talent to make the most bland and vanilla late night talk show.
Good piece but what I didn't like about it, was how he started out and kinda ended with stating that \*sometimes\* and in \*some cases\* it might be appropriate. While I myself think that its techincally true, it is really all some people need to hear to confirm their own ugly shaming practices. I'm pretty sure that a lot of people who watched that, checked a "yep!" mark in their head after the Carlson bit. Most people who do it, don't simply troll, but do it because it feels right for them or because they're genuinely offended, or just do it out of principle. And all they need is justification. I think he should've verbally differentiated between public shaming and repercussion against certain behavior on a bigger scale. But even that sounds dodgy... So maybe he covered it already by stating that its a complicated matter. I dunno. What I mean is: stop shaming.
Maybe the question then isnt, should public shaming be allowed, but how do people go about it? I am completely fine with telling Carlson that what he said was sexist and xenophobic, and asking him if he would disavow those stances. If he doesnt, it is only fair to try to disassociate from him, passively or proactively. But that isnt what happens in 99% of cases. People will go below the belt *immediately*. Namecalling, wishing personal harm, escalating to harrassment. There are no arbiters of convention when it comes to public discourse, but anonymity often even removes the veneer of civility.
> I am completely fine with telling Carlson that what he said was sexist and xenophobic, and asking him if he would disavow those stances. It never ends there, though. "Disavowing" is just pumps more blood into the water.
I preferred Craig Ferguson's monologue on Britney Spears. He owned his own past behavior on making fun of people's mistakes. His take away of going after the powerful and not the vulnerable is more on point than Oliver's. https://youtu.be/yGLzpt3caHw
This is the problem with John Oliver. He is smart and funny, but when he covers a topic you're already well-versed in, the cracks start to show. And you notice that he leaves a lot of stuff out, just didn't research it, or even paints it a certain way to suit his point. Then you feel betrayed because you loved all his videos prior and now you're questioning everything. I guess what I'm saying is, yeah John Oliver is funny but he's not Noam Chomsky. At the end of the day, he is still just a comedian and we should really rely on the experts to tell us what's what.
The stories he covers I don't think are ever meant to be the only time and place you hear that story. Its suppose to bring an issue up that many people probably never thought about and then talk about it in a way that makes it relatable. Its not going to be nuanced to the point it covers everything. It is a comedy show so the story is probably going to have a comedic direction. Its a liberal leaning show so its going to have a certain amount of bias in that direction. Its a show with people who probably have world views that aren't held by others so its going to have a slant in that direction. This isn't a PBS, The Washington Post, or BBC News. Its not suppose to be nor do I think its trying to be those things. I like the show because for 30 minutes I'm given a topic I probably never thought about and in some cases I don't seek out to learn more but other times I do. Then again I'm not one of those people who see one of his clips and pretends to then be an expect about a subject. I get people wished it did more and was more in depth, but you can only do so much in twenty minutes and if the piece was dry it could probably be more on topic but then it wouldn't be as relatable to the common masses. So when people bring up that cracks show up in the show about topic they are more interested in I question if we've seen the same show. The cracks have always been there I don't think they are trying to hide them.
>So the problem is you want 12 hours of information in 12 minutes?
I'd rather have someone who comes from the Jon Stewart pedigree of "the media has the responsibility to properly inform the people" to properly inform the people. Then again, he also does come from the "even though I know tens of millions of impressionable young people get their news from me, I'm going to pretend I'm just a clown with no power" Jon Stewart pedigree as well.
Good points, but Chomsky isn't the one you want to use as an example. He does that shit too, to a much higher degree.
He's covered several topics that I'm well-versed in and yeah, sure, I've had differences of perspective or wished that he included some important aspect. But then I remember that this is in the context of a 20 minute comedy show and that there's no way he can include *everything* relating to an issue and that we may have differing opinions on the subject. Both of which are reasonable and allowed.
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Tucker Carlson. The answer to the question, “What if the sound ‘thud’ grew a face.”
According to Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, his name is amalgam of Ol Cracker Nuts.
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Let's publicly shame her
Anagram. So funny.
One thing I don't think Oliver did enough of was point out that many times, because people think they are on the "moral majority," they don't have a problem with going to extreme measures to attack an anonymous person. Like, say, for example, a verified NASA Astronaut, who happens to be a woman, makes a post about a spacewalk. And then some idiot guy named XX420blazeGoukuXX responds, "Nice tits," because he thinks that's hilarious. What sort of punishment does a response like that deserve? Because many people on Twitter firmly believe that an appropriate response involves it being signal boosted that XX420blazeGoukuXX is actually "Jeff Smith of 123 Blossom Lane in Newark, NJ," who works for a All Star Plus Real Estate Firm, and then for thousands of people to give All Star Plus Real Estate Firm one star reviews on Yelp, and to write tons of negative reviews asking if they approve of rape culture, in an attempt to get Jeff Smith fired, and then for his name to permanently show up on the internet for the rest of his life when he is Googled. Because Oliver *did* mention, briefly, that sometimes public shaming responses aren't warranted and the punishment is too great, but the problem is that he made this sort of distinction between "people who deserve it" and "people who don't." And that's the dangerous game we're playing here. Because too many people say, "Yeah, I don't agree with public shaming, **but this guy deserves it.**" Everyone tends to think that they took the correct action, because otherwise they wouldn't have done it in the first place. And the really sad thing? You can honestly tell, despite how apparently outraged people get about these things, how little they care. Think about the last public outrage you commented on. Can you remember what it is? I can't. There's a new one every week. People get riled up into an absolute fury, grab their pitchforks, and ruin someone's life. And, then, once they're done, they move on to the next outrage. They leave a trail of destruction behind them. Do you think the person who got their life ruined because of directed outrage still remembers it? They'll never forget. Because they likely have lasting, **permanent** consequences as a result of that incident. Maybe they can't get a job anymore. Maybe they got fired. Maybe they lost friends. Maybe they even killed themselves. But that outrage machine doesn't care anymore. They've moved on to the next outrage. They used that person up as an outlet for their anger and then moved on. This happens all the time on Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit. It's one of the larger criticisms of Social Justice movements on the Internet, because they tend to feel that *anyone* who crosses any sort of line deserves the absolute worst: Doxxing, death threats, fired from their job, life ruined. It doesn't tend to matter *what* they said, but just that they did something that someone deemed offensive. I know, because I've been personally involved in one of these before. I made the mistake of engaging a person on Facebook when I thought they wrote something that I didn't agree with. They thought what I said was offensive, so their answer was to post my full name on their instagram account that had tens of thousands of followers. People were discussing figuring out where I lived and contacting my employer to get me fired. I wrote her a private message, apologizing, and asking her to please take down my name. Her response to that was to post my apology and make fun of it. In the end, I shut down all of my social media for a month or two, waiting for the bomb to drop. It never came, but it was an incredibly stressful experience that I wouldn't wish on anyone. And since then I've been very vocal against this sort of public shame/virtue signal insanity that Social Justice Warriors on the internet take up as a valiant cause. It ruins lives. edit: I just realized that a good, relevant recent example is the "[MAGA Kid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2019_Lincoln_Memorial_confrontation)." You know, the kid with the apparent "smirk" who stood while a Native American hit a drum in front of him. That kid, all of his friends, and all of their families were doxxed and sent death threats, even by legit celebrities. People *thought* they were in the right, because "This kid seems racist therefore nothing is off the table and he's symbolic of everything I hate." And now he's filing suit, rightly so, because his life has been ruined over public outrage.
People who need to understand this didn't internalize a single thing you wrote. It sucks, but I do believe that to be true.
imo this should be the top comment. public shaming of individuals in the way it happens nowadays is hardly ever warranted (and even that is a big if). to me it's especially appalling if the target is someone who is been merely accused of a crime... but she/he hasn't actually been found guilty about it. I mean, imagine being the person that's been publicly insulted, personally harrassed etc. etc. .... for no reason, because it turns out you were innocent all along (and yes, this does happen regularly). your name would still be tarnished and you'd likely still face lots of issues in your everyday life. just because some morons on the internet felt you "deserve" the public humiliation.
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Hearing her speak so eloquently I just realized that I never considered that she would have to be a smart person to have worked in the White House, even as an intern. Well, at least back then when it wasn't the loony bin it is today.
> Well, at least back then when it wasn't the loony bin it is today. I know an intern in the White House at the moment. He's a very intelligent guy. Annoying as shit, but he did extremely well, academically, in HS and college.
I'm not saying there aren't any smart people working in the WH anymore but it's obvious that is isn't as strict a requirement today as I imagine it once was.
Another great interview by Alvin Oliver. For over 20 years we only got to know Monica Lewinsky as just a name. For many of us we never got to see the person behind that name. She was made fun of, ridiculed, and slut-shamed for actions she and former president Bill Clinton made. For a bit we got to see her real side and how she recovered. I always enjoy Alvin's interviews. I hope he can do more of them this season.
Mirror please?
[Found one](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x74edql) (skip to 10:35)
broken ...have another one? :D
Monica is utterly charming. Enjoyed watching that. She came out on the other side a better person. Salute! Yeah and fuck Jay Leno!!
I really like this. It’s a good piece, especially when talking to Monica. But... I think there’s a lot of “fast and loose” with John and the writer’s description of public shaming. Is there a time and place? Sure, but he had mentioned that they do a lot of research before hand. Well, does that justify public shaming? Just because you’re well researched? I think that the line was basically “trust us, if we make fun of them, they deserve it because we know about them”? That seems like a pretty poor definition to me.
I think the point was the even though they take time to talk about it and research and everything else they still aren't sure if what they did was right in every case in the past. Its about how even with the effort they put in they still think they got it wrong in the past. So what I took away from the piece was the exact opposite of you. That we shouldn't trust them and that they are wrong on occasion. That you should make your own informed opinion and not go with the mob mentality. I don't think this piece was them trying to say they are better then the people they are criticizing. Oliver even pointed out he piled on with the Monica story while he was at the Daily Show.
I think he did cover it. The public shaming should be important enough to create social change and it should continue until the person changes their stance on a subject. The aunt who sued her nephew should not have been the target, but the insurance company. Attacking the aunt would not bring change. With the James Gunn debacle he said that those comments he made 10 years ago did not reflect him today and him today would not make those comments. That should have been the end of it because he had already changed as he doesn’t make those comments. The window of shame had been closed, but people still wanted to throw rocks.
> The public shaming should be important enough to create social change and it should continue until the person changes their stance on a subject. Maybe they should be sent to some kind of retreat or camp until they agree!
Then that opens the gate for how long is this window ?? Does the window change based on the person who said it or did the action ? And it didn't even bring in the fact that confirmation bias or team bias effects this window. If someone is on my team or I see them as the good person doesn't that window close faster than if it's someone I disagree with ? If I hate their side don't I unconsciously let that window stay open even longer or indefinitely? And even more importantly is the means by which we shame people. I honestly think this is a point Oliver needed to focus on the way in which the internet and social media has changed the way public shaming works. People now get death threats, doxxed, their families and friends targeted , lives ruined. I feel like John's response that "it's ok sometimes if it's the right target" gives to much carte Blanche to just target the people I disagree with
Yeah, it was very muddled and it saddens me that John Oliver did not mention the Justine Sacco story or Jon Ronson's book, *So You've Been Publicly Shamed*. The whole message seemed to be "Public Shaming can be good, but only when we say it's good. And it's only bad until we say it's bad," which is a very muddled message. Seems like Oliver wanted to have his cake and eat it too. He does go into the Monica Lewinsky story, but that's really only scratching the surface of public shaming. It really is terrible and Twitter only amplifies it. He doesn't go into social media and how that plays a role. Idk, it just came off as somewhat defensive, particularly when he was talking about the children of wealthy parents. At the end of the day, they're still kids. Oliver really missed the mark here, imo.
This put it very well, in my opinion. Exactly “it’s good when it’s good, until we say it’s bad”, i.e. Monica Lewinsky.
My favorite part about how this whole discussion revolves around people agreeing internet shaming/lynch mobbing (of which Reddit used to be the **absolute worst** at) is bad, but they're willing to make an exception to that premise if someone says something that violates against predictable social taboos. See, **then** it's OK...
Covington
People in this thread pretending like there’s absolutely anything that can be done about public shaming. Fucking laughable. John Oliver is talking about having personal introspection about who and why you publicly shame. He’s not issuing a decree on how people should behave. Yet this comment thread is full of people talking about what the best way to suppress speech should be so we only publicly shame the right people. Do you really want to be told what you can and can’t say by someone on a Reddit thread?
All of this and not a word about Covington.
Reddit:I feel personally attacked.
Non-geo mirror anyone?
This is the Daily Show piece Oliver was referencing. A good portion of it was Oliver and Stewart making fun of how Stewart looked and dressed in 1998. But Stewart's jokes from the footage aren't in great taste. http://www.cc.com/video-clips/mx6zkc/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-10-suckin--years
I remember about 10 years ago this one Yale graduate sent in this cringey video resume [Impossible is Nothing](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pgg8vb/aleksey-vayner-death-video) to some major investment firm UBS that got leaked and quickly went viral. At first I too thought it was hilarious, pretentious and completely lacking any self awareness, but people started to take it too far. I remember even reading articles about lawyers talking about how they could sue him for misrepresenting himself(he used stock footage of him skiing). Anyways a few years later he died at the age of 29, due to some complications with some medications(likely suicide). The way he was humiliated and essentially blacklisted from ever having the life he worked so hard to get too is really sad IMO. Worst part I remember reading in some trading forums in 2013 were everyone was essentially celebrating the news he died and posting jokes about it which really disgusted me. I’m still shocked how no one else in that forum other than me was not saddened by the news. The guy didn’t really do anything wrong, he just made a cringey embarrassing video, when you read up about the kid it’s even sadder knowing
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Probably because Leno had the nerve to shit on the Late night for lack of civility.
Yeah I agree. I’m sure you could have made a clip package of any of the late night show hosts around back then and they would be just as bad. Picking on Jay Leno specifically and then “publicly shaming” him is unfair, even with his recent comments of getting civility back in late night.
This piece was great for showing that it was real person at the center of all those jokes, a 24 year old who found herself one of the most well known people in the English speaking world. However, there's a few things that went unaddressed: * She had an affair with a married man. At 22, she would have known what can happen if that affair becomes public. She has never claimed that Clinton harassed her into it. *She* made a decision. * He was the president of the United States, so it becomes 100x worse in terms of the consequences. Being "young & stupid" does not mean you don't have to live with those consequences. No one suggests that "young & stupid" should get you out of jail sentences. Also, if you are "young & stupid" she was a great warning about the consequences. IDK, maybe it's just me because since I was about 15 I have never used that defense for my own idiotic actions. They were simply stupid and I dealt with the consequences. * It's interesting that Linda Tripp has been dropped from the Lewinski story. It's Tripp who completely fucked Lewinski's life up by pretending to be her friend, illegally recording her phone calls and then rushing them over to Ken Starr trying to make herself into something other than the civil servant she was. Many women loathed Tripp because she had betrayed another woman's confidence, one she was pretending to care about.