Outrage Porn will be our Grave
The following story is a paraphrase of a chapter from Jon Ronson’s book of investigative journalism, ‘So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed’.
Santa Clara Tech Developers’ conference, 2013. In the middle of the crowd, two friends, Hank and Alex, are making fun of the presenter’s technical jargon. ‘I would fork that guy’s repo’, says Hank; a phrase that in programmers’ jargon means ‘I would copy his repository’ but can obviously have a sexual connotation as well. The two boys in their late 20s were socially awkward nerds and their exchange was barely audible; still it happened to be heard by a young woman of about the same age. Adria turned back and photographed them 3 times; in a few minutes Hank was called by an organiser to explain his behaviour; he told him what he had just said, then decided to leave the conference early.
Adria had written a tweet: ‘”Not cool. Jokes about forking repo’s in a sexual way and “big” dongles. Right behind me #pycon”, in which she had also marked her location inside the hall. Many of her 9000 followers were already congratulating her for ‘educating’ the two men.
Adria continued to justify her tweet through a pop psych comment, arguing that the big dongles jokes came right when the presenter was talking about bringing more women in the world of tech start-ups; the mean men one seat behind were making indecent jokes because they felt anonymous, and all she did was gift them accountability; anonymity is bad because it leads to deindividuation, and this leads to anti-normative and disinhibited behaviour. She ended her new tweet gloriously: “yesterday the future of programming was on the line and I made myself heard”.
As a result of these tweets, Hank’s director decided to fire him. Men’s rights groups and other activists online found out about Adria’s actions and offered to collaborate with Hank; he refused any offer and released a single message on hacker news, in which he was apologising for his comment and the fact that he made Adria feel uncomfortable; “but as a result of the picture she took I was let go from my job. Which sucks because I have 3 kids. She gave me no warning, she smiled while she snapped the pic and sealed my fate”.
On the next day, Adria called Hank’s company and asked them to delete the last paragraph in Hank’s apology message.
As expected, 4chan found out about the situation, spammed Adria’s site, sent her hate mail and eventually her directors decided to fire her. She also had to lay low for a few months.
A few years after the encounter, Jon Ronson interviewed Hank for his book; “what do you think now about Adria’s situation?” “I think no one deserves what she’s been through”. Jon later met Adria to hear her side of the story and she did not express any form of regret. She had photographed Hank because he had made her feel ‘unsafe’. “What did you imagine it might happen? The sex jokes were impersonal”. “Have you ever heard the idea that men are afraid women might laugh at them, while wome are afraid that men might kill them?” “In a hall filled with 800 people?” “Sure”, Adria replied. “And those people would probably be white and they would probably be male”. “So you don’t feel any regret for Hank’s firing?” Adria shook her head. “He’s a white male. I’m a black jewish female. He was saying things that could be inferred as offensive to me, sitting in front of him”. Furthermore, although she is aware of the fact that Hank refused to cooperate with men’s rights activists, Adria considers him directly responsible for the entire wave of abuse she later experienced. “If I had a spouse and two kids to support I certainly would not be telling “jokes” like he was doing at the conference. Oh, but wait, I have compassion, empathy, morals and ethics to guide my daily life choices. I often wonder how people like Hank make it through life seemingly unaware of how “the other” lives in the same world he does but with countless less opportunities”.
Here ends the paraphrase.
Ronson’s book is a dispassionate inquiry in the mechanisms of public outrage. Still, while reading it, you can’t help but feel meta-outrage; anger directed at the phenomenon of knee-jerk outcries and public shaming.
Adria’s reaction was not merely caused by misandry; it was underpinned by poisonous zero-sum ideologies. When she looked at the 2 guys, she did not see two awkward low status nerds having a private conversation; she saw two privileged white – potentially rapy+murderous – males, who, in the intersectional hierarchy, pose a triple problem to a black (I) Jewish (II) female (III). And still, she was taught that this ideology has systemic explanatory power, making sense of wider societal patterns rather than isolated occurrences. And still she used it to justify her own cruel actions and rid herself of accountability and remorse.
Maybe the mechanisms responsible for dehumanisation and outrage cycles are cumulative and impersonal. But, oh, how we long to hold someone accountable! The more our technology provides new means of reaching anonymity, the more we long for tight-knit groups, commitment, sacrifice, accountable relationships. And still we’re never ready to leave these platforms or take our eyes off the damn me-screens. A few more years and we will become old with Social Media; more and more of us will start dying while our profiles linger on the internet. The strange realisation that Black Mirror is mild compared to the dreadful condition we’ve been reduced to.