Replaying My Shame by Emily Gould

A meditation on public shame and how it resounds through the years. Highly recommended:

“When I watch the clip — me and Jimmy Kimmel, in split screen — it’s possible to see the exact moment when I realize what’s going on, that what I’d thought was a joke is in fact serious. It’s when one of the experts tells me that it’s only a matter of time before the map gets a celebrity murdered, and I’m shaking my head in disbelief, causing my stylist-fluffed barrel curls to wag from side to side. Something flips then, and you can see in my widened eyes that I know I’m completely fucked; I’ve been talking about media and they are talking about murder, seemingly meaning it. Objectively, this is the moment to laugh at me. It is funny to watch someone be humiliated. We all think, Wow, thank God it’s not me. The segment lasts about five minutes and ends with Kimmel sternly telling me that I am going to hell.

Someone must have come in and taken off my microphone; someone must have said something empty and cheerful as I exited the studio; someone must have led me to the Town Car waiting downstairs. I must have slept that night. I know that I threw the Chanel jacket in the trash when I got home.”

https://www.thecut.com/2020/02/emily-gould-gawker-shame.html