Shaming In The Scarlet Letter
Everyone Knows What You Did
Everyday someone is tweeting a joke online, not thinking much of it. A few weeks, days, or even minutes pass and the joke is trending globally. All of a sudden, everyone is calling the joke racist. Now the joke is world famous for being racist. What happened to it when it was just a joke? Nowadays public shaming is universal in everyday habits. In modern society social media has influenced the way many people act online. A lot of the time, there is public shaming if someone does not believe in the same thing as you. Most of the time people will comment rude phrases on the post. Since the 1600s, society has transformed excessively. More specifically, public shaming has changed. Since Puritan times, American society …show more content…
In present day, if someone tweets something that they regret the whole world knows about it, and is able to shame them; unlike in Puritan times, only a small town would know what the crime was. While in colonial times, public shaming was much more of a routine than it present day. In the book, The Scarlet Letter, Hester committed adultery: as a result, her city made Hester stand on the town’s scafell and then go to jail. While Hester was in jail, she was forced to wear a scarlet letter on her breasts at all time. Although Hester’s child, Pearl only knew her mother as the only one who wore the scarlet letter. When Pearl was growing up, Hester still wore the scarlet letter. During the time Hester wore it, many of the townsmen would judge her and her daughter, Pearl, of her previous crime. Hester was publically shamed in her town: there was a lot of proximity between cities, so there was not a lot of communication. Therefore, other cities would not know what Hester did. But in modern time, public shaming is more prevalent online especially on social media. In Justine Sacco’s case, she tweeted about AIDS went viral while on the way to South Africa. She stated, “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white” (Ronson)! After Sacco tweeted this, on the plane, the tweet blew up. People from all around the world started to comment on how Justine was
Everyday someone is tweeting a joke online, not thinking much of it. A few weeks, days, or even minutes pass and the joke is trending globally. All of a sudden, everyone is calling the joke racist. Now the joke is world famous for being racist. What happened to it when it was just a joke? Nowadays public shaming is universal in everyday habits. In modern society social media has influenced the way many people act online. A lot of the time, there is public shaming if someone does not believe in the same thing as you. Most of the time people will comment rude phrases on the post. Since the 1600s, society has transformed excessively. More specifically, public shaming has changed. Since Puritan times, American society …show more content…
In present day, if someone tweets something that they regret the whole world knows about it, and is able to shame them; unlike in Puritan times, only a small town would know what the crime was. While in colonial times, public shaming was much more of a routine than it present day. In the book, The Scarlet Letter, Hester committed adultery: as a result, her city made Hester stand on the town’s scafell and then go to jail. While Hester was in jail, she was forced to wear a scarlet letter on her breasts at all time. Although Hester’s child, Pearl only knew her mother as the only one who wore the scarlet letter. When Pearl was growing up, Hester still wore the scarlet letter. During the time Hester wore it, many of the townsmen would judge her and her daughter, Pearl, of her previous crime. Hester was publically shamed in her town: there was a lot of proximity between cities, so there was not a lot of communication. Therefore, other cities would not know what Hester did. But in modern time, public shaming is more prevalent online especially on social media. In Justine Sacco’s case, she tweeted about AIDS went viral while on the way to South Africa. She stated, “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white” (Ronson)! After Sacco tweeted this, on the plane, the tweet blew up. People from all around the world started to comment on how Justine was