Shaming
Shaming is famously common in human societies, both before and since the internet. It is a way of punishing a person for violating someone else’s - or a community’s - norm. Although communities are not nearly as tight-knit and inescapable online as they can be offline, shaming can be very powerful and even terrifying online, when hundreds of even thousands of people join in.
Moreover, especially when large groups (known as dogpiles) gather to rebuke someone online, the action can move offline, to in-person shaming. Online or offline, public shaming not only punishes the target, it also warns other people of what can happen to them if they break group norms.
Shaming or “canceling” people online for their speech or behavior is sometimes referred to as digital vigilantism or “digilantism.” When shaming is vitriolic or threatening and/or when it goes viral, it can do more harm than the speech or behavior it is meant to punish. For that reason, at the Dangerous Speech Project we don’t study that kind of shaming, although it may shift discourse norms, and it is a form of counterspeech.
In one example of a shaming dogpile, in 2018 an 18-year-old American named Keziah Daum was blasted online for wearing a Chinese traditional dress called a qipao to her high school prom dance. She posted photos of herself in the dress alone, and another with friends, all of them with their hands clasped together and bowing, a pose that has sometimes been used to mock Chinese people.
A Twitter user named Jeremy Lam saw Daum’s post and tweeted it along with the words “My culture is NOT your goddamn prom dress.” That was retweeted 42,000 times, and Daum was accused of cultural appropriation and casual racism, though some (including people of Chinese heritage) defended her. Daum said she simply bought the dress second hand because she liked its modest neckline and thought it was beautiful, and didn’t mean to offend anyone. The massive response to her photos sparked another storm of posts, with some saying she deserved it, while others called it bullying.
Sometimes, online shaming campaigns gain so much traction and passion that they continue offline. Also in 2018, Manhattan lawyer Aaron Schlossberg was captured on video berating a restaurant’s employees, and other patrons, for speaking Spanish. In part of his tirade, Schlossberg said, “My guess is they’re not documented. So my next call is to ICE to have each one of them kicked out of my country.” “I pay for their welfare,” he continued. (ICE Is the U.S. national agency for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.) The video went viral on social media, and Schlossberg was quickly identified.
Writer and civil rights activist Shaun King shared the video on Instagram with text including, “Act like this and we will expose you to the world.”
King’s post was viewed over 250,000 times, and many others replied.Those who take part in digilantism do so for different reasons. King’s post reflects two of them: punishing Schlossberg and with that punishment, deterring others from behaving like him. Schlossberg issued an apology a few days later.
But the digilantes were not satisfied. One Tweeted that he refused to accept the apology “on behalf of “those hurt both directly and indirectly by your hate over the years.” “It ain’t over until New York and social media says it’s over.” Indeed it wasn’t over until Schlossberg was doxxed - his home address was posted online - and indignant New Yorkers organized a Spanish language party outside of Schlossberg’s apartment. Amplified on Twitter through the hashtag #LatinPartyNYC, the idea took off. Hundreds of people attended the peaceful protest party where crowds enjoyed a mariachi band, singing in Spanish, paid for with the proceeds of a GoFundMe page that raised over $1,000 for the event.
