A warning about the increasingly destructive influence of America's "shame industrial complex" in the age of social media and hyperpartisan politics.
What The Reviewers Say
Steve Dixon,
Library Journal
Using her powerful story telling techniques including her own experience from weight-loss surgery, O’Neil argues that the long-term solution to this societal problem includes its recognition, and plentiful use of the good human characteristics of kindness and compassion.
Alissa Bennett,
The New York Times Book Review
What O’Neil adroitly illustrates is that shame is often a lonely experience, which is perhaps why it is so easy to exploit it for profit.
Emily Balcetis,
The Washington Post
The Shame Machine is not a diary of O’Neil’s grief but instead a data-driven, anecdote-fueled narrative of the multitude of human experiences that are targets for ridicule and others’ reward. She vividly portrays the indignities of poverty, addiction, aging, dementia and other conditions we all may face but hope to avoid, and she shows how the pain experienced by people with these afflictions can be used for others’ financial and social profits.