[inaudible conversations] >> hi, everyone. i would like to welcome you. thank you so much for coming. we are excited to have jon ronson here with us tonight, journalistst, documentary filmmaker and best-selling author. he cowrote the screenplay. and his writing has appeared in many places including the guardian, the new york times, gq, and others. we are excited to have him here. without further ado, please join me in welcoming. [applause] >> high. thank you for coming. the story of the worst thing i ever did. it is not in the book. my wife like a special occasion. i. my work chooses the very worst things for special occasions. a surprise we can do is part even though she knows i don't like being touched. as i was being massaged trying to make polite conversation i can't think of anything but my childhood. most people were sexually abused. i said, well i remember that. waiting ages. tonight he glances. suddenly the soup came. i began began to eat it ravenously. john, see the john, see the girl at the next table. i looked over and just saw her mimic the way you in your soup. i said really. yes, she did an impersonation for her parents of someone eating soup disgustingly. i no it wasn't impersonation of you. she can't gargoyle hunchback i said zero, so what. she's only 14. how to her parents respond. a smile. i'm going to the toilet. i went. and i should should tell you why immigrants better. quite recently i woke up the middle of the night and was still angry with the boys who threw me in the house parklake in the summer of 1983. i found one of the. anyway. the reason why better me in the lake was because i was a pain in the. the tenor of my e-mail leads them to suspect i haven't changed. i was coming back and saw the girl walking toward me on her way. it was just me and her alone in this grand hallway. i thought, so. she doesn't know that i know. i thought about going to have to say something to her but what? i could be insulting, crc you hunched over your food, but i don't mimic you. just too much. that could be condescending. i could say it's not nice to grotesquely mind mine the way people you either soup. no, that's not right either. suddenly i realized exactly what to do. i thought, simple but devastating. i we will catch your eye and silently do and impersonation of someone eating soup disgustingly. i will mimic or mimicking me. all this took place over the course of one and a half seconds. she will now. soon our 6 feet apart. suddenly feeling nervous. it's very combative and i'm not usually a combative person. i thought, do it. don't and you regret. so i did. my heart my heart was pounding. but i made it with casual. i looked her in the eye opened my mouth and began to rhythmically moved my hands up and down. and i thought this was withering. she looked startled. and then i realized. [laughter] fashion show you what it looked like. i'm proud defiant look. [laughter] can we get the bill. i think the moral of the story is that shame internalized the civil war. whereas shame let out it's so funny story and also were i think bubbling away within us something with us something that we are terrified will ruin us if it got out to be as nothing in this convinced holding a bottle of water i thought would pop into his head. a must be a terrible person a terrible person or shout out something racist. the thought stuck in his brain and haunted him until he went to see a psychiatrist. the psychiatrist said everyone has those thoughts. it's completely normal. it's just part of being human. the intrusive thoughts just went away. when you let these things out and share these things when people treat you with compassion and kindness of empathy that is what heals wounds. the reason i bring that up bunch of story is because i think that's kind of what it was like this radical deep shaming. and people would admit. other people say my god, i'm exactly the same. and then it all blew up. the story of why it happened. but the consequences were. so i spent the last three years the shame been to the house people who were destroyed by most people like us on twitter and into the homes and i think it started really well. suddenly social media the silence out of at a voice and we found was an eloquent voice. like-minded strangers. everyone was due shaming each other. when the powerful powerful transgressed the suddenly realized we could do something about it. so like if the right-wing columnist we could hurt them with a weapon they didn't understand, social media shaming. the kind of democratization of justice. and when the vanity fair columnist written a column about how he shot a buffoon on safari because like all this he wondered what it will be like. i was i was the 1st person to a laboratory to this primarily because the television documentary, bad reviews. [laughter] and read a book about psychopaths. my goal of us in wonder what you like to shoot a person, classic psychopath. i actually is. i would never sue another journalist. so i said, you know how you wrote that column about shooting of the moon on safari because like all this he wondered what it will be like to shoot a person. it's not all of us. is not is not a normal thing to think. it's just you. he said. he said, well you don't hunt. you wouldn't understand. i said some more books than you. so we were attacking people for misusing or privilege. we fell in love with us so much that a day without a shaming felt like a day picking fingernails entering water. at the end of felt weird an empty our lives. and so we started attacking people who were only misusing or privilege if you really close your eyes. and the rather explosive atmosphere and unsuspecting woman: justine. going to tell the story. in story. in new york city puerto rico woman with hundred and 70 twitter followers. and she was going from new york to london to cape town tweeting. how we all feel the internet doesn't congratulate us. came up with another little joke. so right now if you were to put her on a scale of terribleness between one and ten over to give her? >> @say that the ten. [laughter] most people were given a ten i think you be feeling differently. so she never get any replies she felt a little sad about that. turnover five though sleep. someone. someone to my spoken to since high school. i am so sorry to see what has happened. she looked at it baffled. you need to call me immediately. you have you have a worldwide number one trending topic on twitter right now. first they're were the philanthropists. join me in supporting the work in africa. i'm donating today. and there was the beyond horrified and beyond horrified. was everybody on twitter that acumen that includes me. and i just thought what everybody thought. and then i am not entirely sure that last week was intended to be racist. the tradition of people not gleefully flaunting the privilege. the most unbelievable privilege of all-time. the tradition of people marking people who believe they are beyond the privilege. randy newman songs for south park or colbert. the difference was that she really wasn't any good at it she was very bad. and then the calls for her to be fire began. well spent. i think you know what was happening at this time. you know we want to be like good people empathetic people cut down privilege successfully many times. we wanted to show everybody that we were compassionate people. our desire to be empathetic about to commit one of the most on empathetic ask how desire to be like rosa parks but there's a big difference. there's nothing courageous about destroying someone watches asleep on a plane. good luck with the job hunting. sorry not sorry. corporations joined in. [laughter] [laughter] kind of hoping really uniting a lot of disparate groups. corporations. i hope somebody hiv-positive rapes this bitch. by the way, no one went after that post. i shaming campaigns and social media, so primitive that we can only handle destroying one person night. so that person got a completely free ride. i hope you get fired intimate bitch. and then came a tweet from her employer currently and that is when the anger really turned to excitement. all i want for christmas is to see her face when she checks her inbox voicemail. she's going to have the most painful phone turning on moment ever going to watch this bitch get fired in real-time before she even knows she's being fired. not just an ideological crusade but i kind i kind of ideology ten, the complete ignorance of the episode dramatic irony and a pleasing narrative arc. flight traversed the length of africa. #. has justine landed yet to make twitter users worked out exactly what flights she flight she was on so anyone who wanted to watch a program on the flight tracker website. they love doing this. kind of wild to see someone self-destruct without them being aware. i just want to go home and go to bed. i just. the best thing to happen to my friday night. no one in cape town going to the airport to treat her arrival. as in fact landed. if you want to know what it looks like hundred thousand people have just on your part by you were asleep and completely oblivious to it this is what it looks like. frantically leader tweet but it was far too late. sorry, you tweet lives on forever. i managed to convince her to talk to me which she did not want to do. i convinced her to. i met her in a bar. i asked her what the judgment and she said living in america puts us in a bit of a bubble. i was making fun of that bubble. she said she would never talk to a journalist again but she just needed to explain to people are crazy her situation was come out and punishment just did not fit the crime. i crawled out of my body weight in the 1st 24 hours. it was incredibly traumatic. you don't sleep. you wake up the middle of the night forgetting where you are where you are. she released an apology statement cut short her vacation, workers were threatening to strike at the hotel should look to she showed up and was told no one can guarantee your safety. as she told me this she started to cry. i sat with the firmament and try to think of something to say to improve the mood. i said to her a brutal video before people see sense she said, well have all the things i could have been in society's collective consciousness and never struck me that i would end up a brutal medea. anyway, still in touch with her over the course of the years. i discovered the man who had started the campaign against her. somebody had said the tweet ten and he sent it to his 15,000 followers, and that's how it started. i asked him how it felt that he said it felt delicious. and i asked him how he imagines justine was and he said, sure she's fine. i don't think he was being glib. this is really all alike and social media. we want to destroy people but we don't want to feel bad about it. we either just call them a sociopath or say sure they are fine, racist. anyway, finally now a year and a bit after it happened she began to give you back on her feet new job as she likes. my book is come out. finally people are finally people are saying to her i can't believe that we did he i can't believe that we did to you. but people are saying is i can't believe that those people that the. and you know, there is nothing more traumatizing i think that being cast out by tens of thousands of good people into the wilderness and tart you are worthless. that is worse than being attacked because of your pace. my book the story. the chaos of being shamed. twenty-five minutes. how wonderful we can be. the story very quickly. the 1980s. blindly. it's what i wrote and cowrote. so here i am. it was just glorious. nothing makes a nothing makes a young man feel more alive and out of venture and cruising down the motorway at 2:00 o'clock in the morning. if you want to know what it was like commands like this. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] ♪ [laughter] haven't lost any of his magic. anyway, i lost touch with them. staging a comeback and can i help. his that is apps to have a shot down. time. time and not ravaged him. he looked exactly the same. rate this film frank. i clicked on it. dad. he was actually dead undergone chemotherapy. anyway, the next day there was an article in the newspaper saying he had died penniless and would be buried in a pauper's grave. what does that mean, like a journey back in time. so i said on twitter for a few thousand pounds he could be spared spirit of popper's grave. by the end of the day over a thousand people 21000 21,000 pounds which was more than enough to bury and exhumed and reburied. it in summary us on twitter started a fund-raising campaign. cast in bronze to be put up his. he sent me again and social media raising the money. a wonderful money. a wonderful thing. the opposite of what we do. he sent me photographs of the statue on its way and the photograph he looked like he had been disturbing. and then the unveiling. that is what we can do in social media. thank you very much. [applause] >> does anybody have any questions? i hope so. i. >> your book a future movie, as i understand it which we will bring it to a wider audience. i am wondering what you think given the body of criticism your receiving the psychological research. the devastation your book will have. >> is very much a book about confirmation. about me getting drunk. i go on course. the inventor of the psychopath checklist. i go crazy. i started spot psychopath a lot. and robert hare said to me that effectively what happened is the way you drunk with power is exactly what happens when lots of people. i can't control what people do with it. people go to get sensitive let go off and have enormous power over people's lives. so they will go to the civil commitment centers were people who have committed sex crimes will get sent after have done their time in prison. essentially for the rest of their lives and people make these judgments based on three things doing a psychopath spotting course. so it is really, really serious issue. created something as scientific as psychology can ever be, this valuable tool being misused. made fun of myself misusing it. our tendency to over label people and overdiagnosed with the spanish we have for reducing people. we look to label people. children as young as four in america are being labeled bipolar because they present with temper tantrums. it's quite clearly a cautionary tale about confirmation bias which is a huge problem in psychology. if you want to learn how to identify psychopaths you should read robert harris book without conscience. so my book is different from that. the people who are adapting the movie understand the nuances of my book. >> i. publishing on twitter. do you recommend maybe doing a lot of that? the examples. >> yes. antigens of really badly. yeah. really great feminist version. i view my book recently. and said that she was on twitter the night light of the justine seco incident and she said not sure this was intended to be racist. immediately she got away for people. it's a shame. she shut she shut up and did not say anything. one more peace came up. extracted in the new york times. most people were like loved it. compassionate. the right way the right way to talk about her. i suddenly got this attack of a couple of hundred people were going from you once. and i think you covered in the park. he applied to any of the community thing you say is just more evidence for the prosecution. completely silent. he replied to man. get pounds. >> yes. i was wondering. i guess maybe to cover not saying that she didn't. but maybe comment to a person one-on-one and they understand the joke because they know you personally. maybe she might have been cautious enough. >> left alone did after she got back. i mean where she is a puerto a puerto rico person she knows what twitter and media can do. >> i understand what your saying. a puerto rico person. she should've known better. known better. i get that. chile has a hundred and 70 twitter followers. surprised and nobody replied nobody ever applies. i think her story is a moment when a lot of things collide. the image i have in my head. the image of a baby crawling toward. and so i honestly think she should have known better. should have been forgiven. >> i don't understand why definitely did not turn out to be the best. i think within her small social circle. but nuance in context could turn out the window. >> on the really fascinating things about your book you talk a lot about the difference in the way women are received as opposed to an incredible massage and in in which we saw a little bit of you. i was not i was not just untrue that the intervention. the gamers and the women that had to go and i. tiger tag about that. the address that. never find out why. they don't get anything right. the people we've all seen. techniques used by surprised. give me fired. women one ashamed he fired from with the worst thing that we can do to somebody in the shelf for that didn't happen. we tried to guide them. the worst thing we can think of happen to man. i was the way that we compare the difference. very quick. it was quite stunning. >> what happened to her and what happened to him. >> unbelievable. just cities. two men in the crown. whisper a joke to each other. some beavis & butthead take joke. turns around. i think she's taking a photograph of the crowd. they look they look forward and try not to miss a shot. about ten minutes later they are called into an office. the complaint. i no exactly what happened. and that was it. they left the conference early because they did not like confrontation. communicate the complaint. jokes about big dog behind me. you know some of the people most of the people, very well. the employers don't. people are terrified social media somebody's fire. brave employer indeed. so terrifying. kudos to comedy central for sticking up. that does not happen very often because we are terrified. they we're firing you because social media said so so there was a message sorry for what i did sorry about how it made her feel but as a result of her actions i was let go. she smiled. that sealed my fate. so for the next 25 until today for the next two years she was subjected to the most horrifying death threats. i mean,, she was fired from her job. hank get another job right away. by the way a company where there were no female developers. he said there aren't any female developers. still hasn't done in a job. two hands shot up at once which always overwhelms me. [laughter] kill both my children. >> the one thing i wondered how many people really very true that she's horrible how many people had a suspicion was a joke. >> and you know my guess what a lot of people understood. partly because it was one. partly because twitter is like this kind of mutual approval machine. we surround ourselves people feel the same way we do and disprove each other. so my friend says calls it mutual grooming. and so if we are all tearing apart justine seco we all carry on doing it because we are just approving of each other. being passed around in a popularized contest. we don't want to think about it. didn't want to feel responsible for the have wants. smashed a village. >> so like a new thing. but how do you think nowadays? the internet, facebook twitter. >> you see, i think a lot of people here would probably think what i thought. the reason why it died out it's because it lost its power to shame. villages villages became cities people could just lose themselves in the crowd public punishment died out. the massachusetts archive excites me looking at the core documents. turns out the 1st hundred years in america all that happened was people in nathaniel purchase land the rivers. but i was beginning to scroll unprofessionally through the microphone at this time. and i discovered countless entreaties by the great thinkers of the 17th 18th, 19th century to stop public punishment because it was so brutal. i found court documents of a a woman named abigail gilpin who would be with 40 times for adultery and was pleading with the judge, not dealt with me but don't with me in public. please let me have my with before the public. >> up. i read sermons saying stop being so exuberant. this is monstrous. finally it seemed that i have these people began to believe that we lost our minds and the crowd. i found reviews of the things where it was like a a bad critique because he did not with partner. and so, you know we have brought back on social media, and this is very real we brought something back that was considered brutal in the 18th century. i gave a talk in london a couple of weeks ago. woman came up to me and said she was a child therapist in subverting much every child who comes to these days damaged is damaged because of something that happened on social media. one gets upset about in a safe. i don't think there going to cause trouble. i think the surveillance society we need to be worried about is the one we have created for each other. what i wanted to do with this book was go the journey where would meet these people. get inside their heads and try to work out why we are doing to our fellow human beings the thing that we are most terrified might happen to us. >> high. do you see any difference between the public shame and social media between europe and the us? >> 2 i do i see any difference between europe and the us? you know, i live here now. read i have noticed -- this is anecdotal, but i've noticed the american justice system in general and public shaming people are a little bit less. the concept of reentry, even though it's so built into the american mythology the idea of redemption and final act and everyone getting a 2nd chance it's kind of hard are here i think for people to be redeemed. you see that happening in the official justice system little bit on social media. my god when the birds want they just destroy. you know but if you are really serious i spent some time in this book and maximum-security prisons places where people are trying to be given the dignity back. ask any prison psychiatrist who spent their lives trying to understand why people kill and is actually the opposite of what you hear. some people believe that they are born that way. i met this amazing psychiatrist who spent his life in massachusetts high-security prison. every single murder he is ever come across have a secret that they felt chronically ashamed and the shame is what motivated them to kill. most terrible childhood. beaten and abused and insulted by the parents and all violence is an attempt to shake to shape to have a place shame with self-esteem. when he tried to implement educational programs in massachusetts prison to your people back the state governor banned him because he said people are going to commit crimes just so they can go to prison for free education. it was serious. social media in prison. we want to do is replace cold hard judgment shaming. you replace it with empathy and compassion and kindness. [applause] [laughter] thank you very much. i we will be signing books. [applause] >> we have books right back there. if you would like your copy signed. thank you very much. >> thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> book tv is on twitter and facebook, and we want to hear from you. >> were you a fan of the c-span 1st ladies series? that is now a book. learn details of all 451st ladies that made these women who they were their lives ambitions command unique partnerships with presidential spouses. the book 1st ladies presidential historians in of the lives of 45 iconic american women providing lively stories of these women who survived the scrutiny of the white house sometimes a great personal cost. and even changed history. c-span 1st ladies is an illuminating entertaining and inspiring read and is now available as a hardcover and an e-book to your favorite bookstore or online bookseller. >> here is a look at books being published this week. in the road to character new york times columnist david brooks which of the lives of ten historical figures as examples for how to achieve success. political commentator for npr and abc news >> firsthand accounts. half of the quotes are on the record. investigative reporting. because it so happens that this begins with energizer bill clinton's busty blonde mistress goes into hillary clinton's abuse of agents the fact that she is so nasty that asians consider being assigned to her detail a form of punishment, on and on the mary cheney and dick cheney's daughter who tried to get her agents to take her friends to restaurants. they refused, as they should have. she threw a she threw a fit and get her detail removed over that are not to mention the fact that the reason that ronald reagan was shot by hinckley is that ronald reagan's own white house staff overall the secret service to let spectators within 15 feet of reagan as he came out of the washington hilton unscreened and that is by hinckley was able to shoot. that never came out. and so is a major disclosures that we need to know about. we need to know about our own leaders. >> with regard to energizer you read in your book make sure that everyone who comes to visit the president is login except one that you don't log into the book. assigned to the home. hillary clinton. you know the very small example. the. the corner cutting that takes place that could jeopardize the security of the president. on a larger scale with bradley cooper, the actor went to a white house press conference dinner president obama was meant to speak a high-ranking secret service official in new york instructed agents of the hotel to let bradley cooper and his suv into the secure space in front of the hotel room the secret service vehicles were allowed and even they had to be screened anyone can strap some explosive under a vehicle. it was just a favor to bradley cooper security people. agents were horrified. they are risking their lives to protect the president and are being told just let him and. we don't care if there is an explosive. is the kind of culture and talking about which jeopardizes the life of the present. another example on a regular basis agents will be told by management to let people into events without magnetometer or metal detection screening. it is like letting a passenger onto an airplane without metal detection screening. the secret service is so spineless that they will bow to pressure whether the white house, bush obama campaign staff to let people and because the event is about to start. their attitude did not provide enough magnetometers so they say we don't want these people waiting outside the event. we want them to be in. sure enough the secret service was the men. five terrorists with grenades. that is something in my book is still hasn't had the press. examples of corner cutting laxness you know, other malfeasance as though i'm not come out questions to take your latest book first family detail what are some of the revelations that you found a did not make quite a splash that you thought they would? >> well, one was vice president biden when he goes to wilmington back to his home which you do several times a week he will instruct agents to keep his military aid with the nuclear football which launches a counter attack on a country like russia or let's say china or north korea at least a mile behind in the motorcade along with his medical dr. because he wants to have this image of regular joe. he joe. he does not want a big one motorcade. so he says, stay back a a mile behind. well, of course if obama were taken out they would not be time for the military it with the football to get the biden so that he could launch a counterattack. what could be more irresponsible and reckless? and yet that has not been picked up by the press. in addition, he goes back several times a week. it's one thing to go back a few times a year but he treats air force to like a little taxi. and the cost to our taxpayers has been a million dollars since biden took office. .. here's a look at some upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around the country. the san antonio book festival is taking place today. look for some of this festival's programs to air on booktv in the coming weeks. next, on april 18th and 19th booktv will be live from the university of southern california for the 20th annual "los angeles times" festival or books. our full schedule of coverage is available on the web site, book tv.org. then on april 25th the booktv will be consecutiving the annapolis book festival. in the stay of geathersburg, maryland will hold the book festival on may 16th and you'll see it live on booktv that day. let usow ft. book fairs and festivals in your area and we'll add the to our list: next week we're live from "the los angeles times" festival of