Monica Lewinsky goes inside the culture of shame in 15 Minutes Of Shame documentary
As Lewinsky puts it, she knows a thing or two about public shaming
Few people know the dangers of public shaming quite like Monica Lewinsky. At age 23, she became the most famous person in the world, with the likes of Jay Leno taking potshots at her on national television. We don’t need to go back over the grim details, which are currently the subject of a Ryan Murphy miniseries produced by Monica Lewinsky herself—you can read our wonderful recaps for that. One assumes that the series fits Lewinsky’s perspective on that situation, but for the last couple of years or so, Lewinsky’s taken on a new project: investigating public shaming.
In 2015, Lewinsky hosted a TED Talk entitled “The Price Of Shame,” during which she refers to herself as “Patient Zero of losing a peronal reputation on a global scale almost instanteously.” There’s a lot of nuance in the conversation surrounding online public shaming—though you’re probably not going to get that kind of nuance from Tucker Carlson weaponizing that bemused brow of his. Complaining about “cancel culture” in a world where Chris Brown is still getting Grammy and VMA nods feels like a dead end.