Hi, beautiful people, my name is
Brenda Davies, I'm the host of In
the Gray.
And today we're discussing public
shame and whether or not your
behavior on the internet is
angelic or downright
villainous and why the fella?
I don't think on the ballot.
But before I begin, I have
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now. Public shame is as
old as time, from
dunce caps meant to humiliate
schoolchildren, ducking stools
and scolds to force women into
submission shaming parades
so aptly named to
the pillory where people were
subjected to harassment, spit
and even occasionally killed
by pelted rocks, objects or
animals.
And now in glorious twenty
twenty two.
Just kidding.
This year appears to be another
nightmare.
Our shaming device of choice is
social media, and now
you don't have to be famous to be
famously shamed.
A shame mob can come for
anyone.
So even if you think this video
isn't for you, one day soon
you could tweet something offensive
or ignorant before hopping on a
plane.
Or you could tweet an opinion that's
given a bad faith interpretation.
You can hold your hand the wrong way
and be mistaken for a white
supremacist.
You could stand up for yourself in a
matter that's authentic to you,
but offends others.
Or, God forbid, your
mom or someone you love could
have a breakdown in the local
grocery store for any
of these social media crimes.
The punishment can be steep,
from job loss to depression
to death.
And before we go on, let me clarify
there is a major difference between
shame and accountability.
There is a difference between
sharing information and
demanding that others acquiesce
to your personal opinion.
For example, accountability
would look like you having an
in-person or text or phone
conversation with your uncle
who made a sexist comment,
and his reception to that
accountability would mean that he
looks inward, processes
the information that you gave him,
and apologizes for the words
that he used or the way that he hurt
you. Meanwhile, Grace would look
like you while doling out
that accountability.
Actually listening to the person
you're speaking with?
Taking into account their journey,
their upbringing.
Their indoctrination into false
ideas and giving them the time
and space to process the information
you gave them.
Or you could screenshot your uncle
and humiliate him on Tik Tok.
Your choice.
And I mean, it's it is your
choice, the power of how
you choose to behave online
and the result those choices have
on your nervous system is
entirely in your hands.
And that is great news
in a time where the world's systems
are quite literally falling apart,
with Russia declaring war on the
Ukraine and Texas, declaring war
on trans children and their
families.
This is no time to check
out and fall into the toxicity
of social media.
We can use these platforms
for light or darkness,
for our mental wellbeing or
our mental unraveling.
The power of that choice is
completely within your
to practice media literacy and look
at the gray.
I highly recommend Jon Ronson's
podcast The Last Days of
August Ames.
He meticulously pulls apart the
events that led to a porn stars
suicide, which many people
believe was propelled by August
Twitter shaming after posting
a homophobic tweet.
And that's the thing.
In my opinion, August tweet
was awful and perpetuated
the stigmatization of gay men,
but she was also a living,
breathing complex human being.
And when Twitter relentlessly
diminished her to a single tweet,
we lost her for good.
I myself spent months being
accused of being racist
and ablest and a fat phobic
by people who flattened out a
single image of myself
and a small handful of my friends
as a group of religious trauma
survivors posing naked
in the desert.
I fully anticipated
conservative wrath.
I imagined that we would hear we
were just bells and whores and told
to shrink ourselves in shame
by the conservative community.
What I did not expect was
a mob of voices from my
own community flattening
that image, creating false
narratives and refuting
the truth that 20 things
can be true about a photo
or about a single tweet, and
that all of that nuance
is worthy of discussion
is worthy of analyzing before
pelting rocks and hurling names.
When the left shames someone on
the left, the resulting turmoil,
confusion and depression can
really spiral out of control
because usually the thing the
person is being shamed about
is an issue they genuinely care
about, like not being able
less racist or fat phobic.
And we are all on this journey
making mistakes together.
So the shamed party will either
be flung into virtue signaling,
frantically reposting black
and neurodivergent creators
just to prove to the woke mob
that they are worthy and not a bad
person, or
they will go inward tormenting
themselves while their audience
demands your silence is deafening.
We need you to comment on this
while having no regard for this
creator's mental health or
ability to completely understand
the issue at hand.
Internets What are you doing?
Shame and fear will never
propel progress.
If anything, we have to overcome
those negative emotions of
shame and fear to make true
change in our lives and the lives
of others.
Also, shaming yourself
or other people into virtue
signaling is the best way
to promote the spread of false
information, which is the
last thing we need.
I remember during George Floyd's
murder, I was
relentlessly told by
white women in my comment sections
and Dems that I had
to call. Constantly post to
prove my anti racism
in the midst of that frantic
reposting, I spread
misinformation, which blows
my mind because that goes against
everything that I stand for here on
this channel, which is to provide
accurate information to you,
to the best of my ability.
And on that note, thank
God I see people reposting
Dr. Devon Price's message reading
You are not obligated to issue
grand proclamations about incredibly
complex issues.
You know, relatively little about
with the caption reading You should
be worried is a red flag.
Why would you ever have a moral
imperative to be in a state that
makes information processing
and logic harder?
And to my fellow religious
trauma survivors?
Why in the hell would we
allow ourselves to fall
prey to shame and fear
all over again, to being
told what voices we are to
adhere to, to being told
from outside sources?
How we are to behave, speak
and even think.
Does that not sound like
evangelicalism to you?
And I am surely not zombie
walking right back into that
oppressive mentality.
Not for anyone like
the wonderful creator Africa, Brooke
writes.
It's important that you filter
everything presented to you through
your own self-awareness,
apply critical thinking and
remember the your outrage is
not for rent.
Use it wisely and on your own
terms or think,
as the American poet, essayist
and educator Robert Hayden wrote.
We must not be frightened nor
cajoled into accepting evil
as deliverance from evil.
We must go on struggling
to be human, though monsters
of abstractions police and threaten
us.
So how do we apply Robert Hayden's
wisdom to our own lives?
These are my three tips on
instigating positive change
on social media.
Your own dang self.
One. Take care of yourself
in the pandemic, we all defaulted
to our phone for social
contact, which in itself
is not a bad thing.
But when we reside with our
neck down, looking at our phone
all the time, we are more
likely to dehumanize
others and to take on shame
or fear ourselves.
So you need to combat this
by loving on yourself,
by giving your body, he or she
or they everything they need
to feel safe and loved
in this world.
And this means noticing
when your head is down too long and
your neck starts to ache, or
when your jaw or your shoulders
are clenched in fear or frustration
or rage.
In those moments, listen
to the message that your body is
sending you.
Get out in nature.
Take a walk, find a forest,
find an ocean, draw a bath,
talk to a friends.
Have a conversation that enlivens
and enriches you.
Watch a comedy show put on something
funny.
Anything that you can do to listen
to the message that your body is
sending, which I bet
is something along the lines of
Hey honey, look up
from your phone and be present.
We are living in this present moment
and we need to wake up to that
and wake up to the messages that
our bodies are sending.
Before you comments or tweets,
get into your own body
and determine, am I wanting to
say this out of rage or
anger or hate or fear or shame?
Or am I wanting to say this out of
love for myself and for
those around me?
And if the answer is not love,
can you?
I compel you to take a pause,
sit back and think,
Do I really need to send this tweet?
And this is super important
because of number two, practicing
media literacy before
you harass and demonize others.
You need to critically think
about your own behavior.
You need to be willing to look past
a mere headline or a flattened image
or a tweet before you decide
to smear and hurt another
human being.
Between the Britney documentary and
every tabloid story ever,
we can see how our public shame
cycles hurt real people.
Meanwhile, we can and should
do better.
A great example of practicing media
literacy in the Britney Spears
situation would be to listen
to call her daddy is interview with
Jamie Lynn, her sister.
We, the public, were so quick
to demolish the character of Jamie
Lynn while never hearing her
side of the story.
Listen to the gray hair all
sides and before judging,
ask why you're judging in the first
place.
And while we're practicing being
better people in this very
moment, we can decide if we're
going to. You mock and humiliate
Kanye West, like we did
to Britney Spears.
Or if we would rather treat people
in the midst of a potential mental
health crisis with more compassion,
this time
is like a sprained brain,
like having a sprained ankle.
And if someone has a sprained ankle,
you're not going to push on him
more.
Right. With us,
once our brain gets to the point of
spraining.
People do everything
to make it
worse and for those who are still
committed to public shame.
I want to point out that some people
in these public situations
don't consider that they had a
positive outcome from these woke
mobs.
And if you're still not sure
your tweets and comments matter,
look to Ahmed Best, the Jar
Jar Binks actor who revealed
he contemplated suicide
following a Star Wars episode
one backlash.
Which brings us to number three.
Recognize your own power,
and this is such a good
thing.
Not everyone will practice righteous
or careful behavior online.
So it is in your power
to not input or output
shame.
This channel has always been
about finding the truth for
yourself.
For example, don't let anyone
bully you into not being friends
with someone that you care about
because they don't share all your
views or because they've said
something online that other people
don't agree with.
It is key and crucial
to maintain friendships and
communication with people that
don't share our views.
This is the only way to instigate
compassionate and authentic change.
Follow creators who lean
into nuance and who prioritize
truth over salaciousness
and on the contrary.
Unfollow, mute or even
block any one
you want.
It is your life.
You are within your own power
to determine who takes up real
estate in your real life and
on your social feeds.
And with that said, this is petty
and embarrassing.
But for me, I'm wildly
jealous of wealth and nepotism.
I don't want to be, but here
I am. I'm working on it.
That said, I never ask
another person to dull their shine
to protect my negative emotions
from coming up.
I don't follow the Hadiths because
their posts thrust me into
envy and fear of my own lack.
What I don't do is go on the
Hadid's page and demand that
they stop posting about their
affluence or success.
What I do is take that power
back into my own hands.
I realize what their
images and posts stir
up inside of me, and I use
that information to figure out
how I can be better to
ask myself, Why am I afraid
of lack? Why am I afraid of not
having enough money?
That is the work that I have to do,
and at the same time, I choose
not to subject myself to those
images.
And the beautiful thing is when you
exercise grace for yourself
and recognize that a lot of times
these bad behaviors we display
online are simply an output
of our own fears.
Then we are more able to extend
grace to others, and
this works, vice versa.
Practice extending grace to others,
and you will have more grace and
compassion for yourself
when you practice media literacy.
When you recognize that your
experience online is something you
can cultivate yourself.
Then you will be truly empowered
to win this shame game,
to overcome it and to be an
instigator of true positive
change in this world.
And that's it.
Please, like subscribe, share with
your friends. Donate to my Patreon
or Venmo if you can, and love you
all so much.
God bless.