Sep 5, 2022
If you’re a fan of The Unspeakable, you’re almost certainly a fan of Jon Ronson. When it comes to the subject of ruinous humiliation via mobs (online or otherwise) Jon’s 2015 bestselling book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed is both a field guide and a sacred text. His 2017 podcast The Butterfly Effect, looked at the downstream effects of the pornogrpahy industry. It also circled around a theme that arises frequently in his work; the way a single moment or seemingly random choice by just one person can result in a massive cultural or political shift. Last year, in collaboration with the BBC, Jon created the podcast Things Fell Apart, an eight-part series telling the origin stories of some of our most contentious cultural battles, including the right to abortion, book banning in schools, and the mania known as the satantic pre-school panic. In this interview, Jon talks with Meghan about that podcast as well as his thoughts about “cancel culture” seven years since the release of So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. He reveals what parts of the culture wars he’s still afraid to take on, why the Rachel Dolezal story felt like a missed opportunity for a meaningful examination of race, and why he got so burnt out on the whole subject a few years ago and had to take a break.