NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A clear-eyed warning about the increasingly destructive influence of America’s “shame industrial complex” in the age of social media and hyperpartisan politics—from the New York Times bestselling author of Weapons of Math Destruction

“O’Neil reminds us that we must resist the urge to judge, belittle, and oversimplify, and instead allow always for complexity and lead always with empathy.”—Dave Eggers, author of The Every

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Times (UK)

Shame is a powerful and sometimes useful tool: When we publicly shame corrupt politicians, abusive celebrities, or predatory corporations, we reinforce values of fairness and justice. But as Cathy O’Neil argues in this revelatory book, shaming has taken a new and dangerous turn. It is increasingly being weaponized—used as a way to shift responsibility for social problems from institutions to individuals. Shaming children for not being able to afford school lunches or adults for not being able to find work lets us off the hook as a society. After all, why pay higher taxes to fund programs for people who are fundamentally unworthy?
 
O’Neil explores the machinery behind all this shame, showing how governments, corporations, and the healthcare system capitalize on it. There are damning stories of rehab clinics, reentry programs, drug and diet companies, and social media platforms—all of which profit from “punching down” on the vulnerable. Woven throughout The Shame Machine is the story of O’Neil’s own struggle with body image and her recent weight-loss surgery, which awakened her to the systematic shaming of fat people seeking medical care.

With clarity and nuance, O’Neil dissects the relationship between shame and power. Whom does the system serve? Is it counter-productive to call out racists, misogynists, and vaccine skeptics? If so, when should someone be “canceled”? How do current incentive structures perpetuate the shaming cycle? And, most important, how can we all fight back? “What is the relationship between shame and power—and is shame being weaponised? Smart thinker Cathy O’Neil tackles the question in this book, exploring whether public shaming is becoming dangerous.”—Evening Standard

“Cathy O’Neil’s Weapons of Math Destruction was a thunderclap—using wonderfully vivid stories, it exposed the dehumanizing effects of a data-driven world. The Shame Machine is even more personal, but no less devastating. Whether it’s through bodyshaming mobs or a deeply flawed judicial system, humans use shame as a weapon to bully, demean, and devalue other humans. And with the unstoppable growth of digital tools, this power has become far too great. O’Neil reminds us that we must resist the urge to judge, belittle, and oversimplify, and instead allow always for complexity and lead always with empathy.”—Dave Eggers, author of The Every

“Cathy O’Neil’s fascinating, important, and insightful book is a hard look in the mirror, but one that also gives us hope that we can marshal shame into a force for social reform and not just social punishment.”—Michael Patrick Lynch, author of Know-It-All Society

“In this trenchant, and at times heartbreaking, critique of the shame industrial complex, Cathy O’Neil lays bare how shame underpins the deep divides of modern society. But not all shame is bad, O’Neil contends—used correctly it can be a powerful tool to fight injustice.”—Nicole Aschoff, author of The New Prophets of Capital

“The Shame Machine is an intimate and unflinching account of the many ways that shame is produced, weaponized, and turned into profit by industries that can grow big only when we feel small. With moral clarity and powerful storytelling, Cathy O’Neil reverse engineers the ‘shame machine,’ revealing its inner workings and inciting nothing short of a cultural reckoning that has the potential to blow this machine to bits.”—Ruha Benjamin, author of Race After Technology

“A thought-provoking look at shame in contemporary America . . . O’Neil explains that when shame is used properly—by punching up instead of down—it can help to ensure fairness and justice. Online shaming, however, tends to be counterproductive. Interwoven with illuminating case studies of teenage girls in Manhattan private schools, the hikikomori movement of shut-ins in Japan, and incels on Reddit are O’Neil’s reflections on the experience of being conditioned to feel bad about her weight. She tells these and other stories with grace and wit. . . . This is a unique and riveting look at a crucial yet little understood aspect of modern life.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Whether it’s smoking in public, masking against Covid-19, or promulgating political lies, O’Neil allows room for shame while also urging readers always to ‘punch up’ at the social and economic machine and its masters rather than down at the vulnerable. A thoughtful blend of social and biological science, history, economics, and sometimes contrarian politics.”—Kirkus Reviews