15 Minutes of Shame

The people posting negative reviews with personal attacks on the creators are only validating the message of the documentary. I seriously doubt they watched this documentary or at the very least watched it and didn't want to hear it. This is, objectively, a well-done documentary with food for thought no matter your political stance.

"Social media was a good idea, but people ruin everything," That pretty much sums up this documentary that looks into the dark side of social media and social shaming online. I think that this documentary is really important at our current moment in time where social media is such a huge part of our society. And honestly, it is scary because it seems like this public shaming could happen to anyone at any time, and it doesn't solve anything. It just furthers the current political divide. With that said, I think people should watch this and consider the effects of what we post online.

It started out strong with examples of internet shaming that are both recognizable and more nuanced than Twitter outrage allows us to explore. Remember the guy who bought all the hand sanitizer in early 2020? There are even some cultural psychologists who weigh in on human tendencies and behaviors and offered insightful commentary.

Then, they brought in the gender studies experts. It all went downhill from there when they started explaining how women who get internet-shamed are victims of the patriarchy. Roxanne Gay weighed in to tell us it's not "cancel culture," but is actually "consequence culture." Unless, of course you're a woman of color, then it's just racism.

It's really too bad that it took the turn it did because it had such great potential to be objective and reflective.

I was looking forward to watching this. But as another reviewer said, it started out great then became uninteresting halfway in. I am not a republican, I'm definitely more liberal than anything. However, I too am tired of everything in the media having a far left view. This documentary wasn't any different. The experts were all so similar it became monotonous. I enjoy hearing different opinions, but unfortunately, no one is allowed to disagree anymore. No one is allowed to grow and learn from their mistakes, or even make mistakes in the first place. Once someone makes a remark that isn't liberal, they are unjustly punished by strangers and sometimes public figures on the internet. I was hoping we would hear more from the people who were unfairly cancelled and less repetitive points of view from the experts. I felt sympathy for the people who actually went through mass shaming online, and would have preferred to hear from more of them. There's plenty of them out there, our online society has become deplorable. Everyone is so angry and defensive, I wish they had tapped more into that aspect of it. There were some informative moments, but the rest was too dull to save it. This topic needs more than an hour and a half, it should have been a doc-series with more experts who have different thoughts and more interesting research and facts on the topic. They missed a great opportunity with this one.

Although made with good intentions, the documentary can't seem to find out what it wants to be. There are individual sections, addressing different aspects of online shaming, but all scattered and thus, it makes one see all of it through one eyeglass. It definitely could have been better.