Recently, on the Today show, there was a video about a mother who was sitting in the stands watching her son play in a middle school football game. She did not wear a mask, but she was threatened with a Taser, and was escorted out. She said she had asthma, and couldn’t breathe with a mask. She has been shamed, and viewed by millions, but this is the way we live during these very strange times.
This situation is summed up in a story in a previous week’s New Yorker, part of the magazine’s annual Technology Issue. “The Shaming Pandemic” cannot be ignored, because we see it so often on the news or on social media. D.T. Max, who is a staff writer for the magazine, has compiled numerous examples that burn bright, then flame out – but not always. The subhed is this: “Online shaming isn’t as brutal as the Puritan stocks, but the scale can be devastating: hundreds of vicious messages per second.” (The illustration accompanying the story m was created by Christine Rösch.)
Since I have been struggling with technology with this blog for several weeks, I give a side-eye toward technology and want to hide in a corner. But I am hoping a rescue is right around the corner. (And it is!)
Below are two links: one to The New Yorker article, and a clip from the Today show.
Chandler in Denver 