Shame

[I wrote this essay for our June 17, 2022 episode - AK]

On June 2, 2022, we did an episode on bass -- frequencies, instruments, writing parts. It was a typical show for us: the three of us talking about what we liked and didn’t like, in a somewhat rambling way. 

Dee had asked a musician friend of his to be a guest. The friend politely declined, because they were concerned they would say something “wrong”. They were worried that something they said might be used against them by the internet, and they would permanently ruin their lives.

This is not the first person who has passed on being on our show for that specific reason.

Music, Mindfulness, and Madness is not edgy or dangerous or controversial. Listeners will find the three of us -- me, Dee, and Michael -- talking about our lives and experiences, and occasionally talking about what we like and don’t like. We also are happy to edit out anything people don’t want included, whether it is a personal detail, a particular opinion or thought, or coughs, hesitations, or false starts. But it is not enough for some people.

They are afraid. Perhaps with good reason. If you say the wrong thing -- as determined by “the internet” -- you could be in big trouble. There are plenty of stories about people whose lives have been ruined because something they said got blown up online. Perhaps it was taken out of context. Perhaps it was not. But the result is for a belief, a statement, or a word, they lost their jobs, their friends, their money, their mental health.

In some cases, this is because they have views or opinions that most people would consider loathsome, or at least controversial. Maybe they’re Nazis. Or supporters of a particular government, like Israel or Palestine or Russia or China or the United States, that other people don’t like. 

But it might also be that they made a joke that fell flat or was taken out of context. Or maybe just used a word they are not supposed to use, regardless of context. 

If you are lucky, you are simply ignored. If you aren’t lucky, someone will decide you will be the target of the Internet Shame Cannon. You’ll trend on Twitter. You’ll become a meme. Your life will be destroyed. 

Jon Ronson wrote a book about this, called “So You've Been Publicly Shamed”, and he gave an excellent TED Talk about the phenomenon. Ronson clarifies what I had long suspected: people turn into a mob, burn someone at the stake, and then comfort themselves by saying “well, it’s just the internet, they’ll be fine”. But of course the individuals aren’t fine. 

Their lives are temporarily, and sometimes permanently ruined, and permanently changed. You can decide for yourself whether or not they “deserved it”, but Ronson underlines that these people had no trial, no due process, no aspect of self-defense, and their sentence is not decided by any law or coherent set of rules. 

The implementation of internet mob shame is cruel and arbitrary, and we should all consider how we are a part of that mob, before we all become part of the target.

Ronson ends his TED talk with this. He says:

Maybe there’s two types of people in the world: those people who favor humans over ideology, and those people who favor ideology over humans. 

I favor humans over ideology, but right now, the ideologues are winning, and they’re creating a stage for constant artificial high dramas where everybody’s either a magnificent hero or a sickening villain, even though we know that’s not true about our fellow humans. 

What’s true is that we are clever and stupid; what’s true is that we’re grey areas. The great thing about social media was how it gave a voice to voiceless people, but we’re now creating a surveillance society, where the smartest way to survive is to go back to being voiceless.

Let’s not do that.

Public shaming is cruel and bad, which is why we stopped pillorying people in the public square 150 years ago. 

Now it happens on the internet, which never forgets. Your transgressions are just a Google search away for someone. 

You have to decide whether or not you want to participate in the discussion, to provide free content that corporations will monetize, and put your voice out there for others to ignore, criticize, or use against you. 

It is no wonder the smartest people I know avoid all of that.

There’s also private shame. It might be as simple as lying awake thinking about the embarrassing thing you did in 8th grade. Or the time you hit “Reply All”. Or just the ways you disappoint yourself, day after day.

You are your own internet mob, your own victim, and your own audience. 

You have to get past that stuff so you can live your life. At times it can seem impossible. But you may find that nobody except you remembers those events. You are probably returning to these memories more than anyone else.

As a person, you might also want to learn something from those experiences, as long as you are not crippled by them.

But being an artist is different. Being creative means you are supposed to take risks. You put your thoughts, your perspective, your feelings, and your work out there for public comment and critique. You put yourself out there. 

The unique take you have is what makes your art compelling. I am paraphrasing someone talking about film, but as an artist, our task is to put something in the world that would otherwise not be seen or heard. It should be different, unique, and if not personal, then at least informed by our own special individual natures.

It used to be that people could and would separate the art from the artist. In 2022, many people do not. They will pore over your work and assume it is you -- every lyric is ripped from your life, and represents what you feel or think. 

You can try coming up with a stage persona, but that probably won’t help. If anything, the world will judge and critique that as well.

I will tell you this: No matter what you do, most people aren’t going to like it. You’ll be lucky if you make enough of an impact that they tell you they don’t like it. You’ll be luckier still if they actually do like it and give you some comments.

Knowing all that, you have choices. You don’t have to show your art to anyone. Or you can make the safest possible choices and hope that if they do notice, they say it’s fine, or say it sounds similar to other things they like or what’s popular right now. Or maybe they just ignore it. 

But isn’t the whole point to express yourself? To share something? Think of the art that matters most to you. Does it say something? Does it take a position? Does it speak? 

Some of the greatest art came from people sharing their shame, their mistakes, their innermost selves. 

Will you say something and risk everything? Or say nothing at all?

And as an audience, what would you rather have? Artists willing to express themselves, or artists who say nothing?