I came across an unexpected Ted Talk by Monica Lewinsky about shame and humiliation. There is perhaps no better example of a non-public figure being publicly humiliated to a global audience than Lewinsky. As she describes, the mainstream news broke the story of her sex scandal with Bill Clinton at a time when internet access was becoming prevalent, and the internet provided a mechanism to share the details of that scandal across the globe with more content and detail than ever provided in print media and TV. She was only 22 at the time.
She suffered from extreme cyber bullying, trolling, and online harassment. I cannot imagine what it would be like to be despised and humiliated and joked about by millions of complete strangers all over the world. It is not a situation I would wish on anyone, no matter what they did or said.
Here is a link to her Ted Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/monica_lewinsky_the_price_of_shame
