on shame
on shame, cancel culture, and being “woo-woo”
Mary RettaI.
The summer of 2017, I returned to school to find that a new astrology app called Costar had taken over my college campus. People would ask for your username by way of greeting, convince you to download if you hadn’t already, then give you their profile so that you could match. Costar operates by asking for your birth time so as to create your astrological chart, and then connecting you with other users to approximate how compatible you are; for example, according to Costar, me and my sister are very compatible because we share a Taurus moon, while me and my friend Yume are not as compatible, because her Libra moon butts head with mine.[1] At the time, I barely understood what astrology was, and other than being pretty sure I was a Virgo, I couldn’t say anything about my own chart, let alone how it matched with others. Despite this, I caved and downloaded the app my first day back on campus. Later that night, sitting in the cafeteria giggling about this chart and that placement with my friends, one thought was stuck in the back of my mind, ready to emerge if I saw anyone felt the same: this is stupid. astrology is dumb and childish, right?
I’ve since changed my tune about astrology, but my instinct to shame those who enjoy it still fascinates me. In the last few years, we’ve collectively witnessed a culture shift wherein shame has become the biggest cultural and political motivator, a method for holding people accountable that often also holds them to the flame: both celebrities and regular people are “cancelled” online nearly every day, and the practice of body shaming has made extreme cosmetic procedures and photo editing common practice on social media. In both online and private spaces, people are shamed for being on either side of an extreme—too left, too right, too sex positive, too prudish, too loud, too quiet, too little, too much. Sometimes it seems the only way to avoid being shamed is through silence. Perhaps this is why I’m sometimes scared to admit that, though I may have rolled my eyes those years ago when my friends first showed me Costar, I later went on to feel weirdly seen by certain astrological readings[2], and have had great fun dissecting people’s charts with my friends, even if I don’t fully understand them. Or why, though I’m usually quiet about it, I’m positive I have manifested many things before, and I’ve always felt very drawn to the number three.
We undoubtedly live in a culture that is anti-connection, anti-pleasure, and simply anti-fun. We are not only rewarded for participating in it, but are actively shamed for expressing a desire to change it. Lately I’ve been wondering what life would look like without shame—and is it even possible to release shame without our world changing shape?
II.
Laughter comes in many shades: sometimes it is beautiful, sometimes it’s destructive, but always, always, it is powerful. In her seminal text, “The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love,” the Black poet and scholar bell hooks writes that, when she would give lectures about what she calls the “imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy,” the most common reaction she was met with was laughter. “No one has ever explained why accurately naming this system is funny,” hooks writes. “The laughter itself is a weapon of patriarchical terrorism. It functions as a disclaimer, discounting the significance of what is being named. This laughter reminds me that if I dare to challenge patriarchy openly, I risk not being taken seriously.” I believe hooks’ analysis can be applied more generally to look at the ways that laughter is often used as a model of violence and conformity: when people laugh at the word “patriarchy,” just as when I once laughed at astrology, we are sending a clear message of cultural and intellectual superiority: This thing you are passionate about is stupid. You should be ashamed that you are stupid and ashamed that you have passion.
Public shaming rituals have long been integral to many cultures across the globe. In the United States, practices like the stocks and pillory were once common punishments used to maintain “law and order,” particularly before the creation of the police force in 1844. In other countries, rituals like tar and feathering and public flogging were customary. In 1778, founding father Benjamin Rush famously wrote that shaming “is universally acknowledged to be a worse punishment than death.” This logic helps to explain why, throughout the 20th century, many of these rituals were outlawed in the West as experts insisted that the psychological damage of public humiliation was too great for people to endure. However, the rise of the internet has once more shifted our mainstream shaming tactics: while humiliation was once contained to a local public, social media has given shame a global audience, thereby both magnifying and intensifying it. In his 2015 book, “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed,” the writer Jon Ronson explored this new phenomenon, arguing that we are currently living through “a great renaissance of public shaming.” While Ronson’s work, which mainly consisted of traveling across the world to interview people who had been shamed online or in their personal lives for private mistakes that somehow reached mainstream attention, was thorough and well researched, I felt his book spent too much time sympathizing with those who were shamed for bigotry rather than taking a broader look at how contemporary cancel culture has shaped and often minimized our capacity for empathy and forgiveness. In her recent book, “We Will Not Cancel Us,” scholar adrienne maree brown does just that. Brown’s book takes a look at how public shaming, particularly on the internet, has created a culture of fear even within leftist circles, where people are scared to explore or try new ideas that are not approved by the mainstream. “I have felt a punitive tendency root and flourish within our movements,” brown writes. “I have felt us losing our capacity to distinguish between comrade and opponent, losing our capacity to generate belonging." Like Ronson, she points out how call outs have contributed to this culture: on the left, people are often called out online for not being radical “enough,” for being radicalized “too late” in life, for not being loud enough about a particular issue, and the list goes on. “Call outs elicit both a consistent negative and dismissive energy, a pleasurable take down activation, regardless of what the call out is addressing,” she says. “It has started to feel like every kind of dissonance in movement is understood through a lens of violence, abuse, and victimization.”
Both brown and hooks argue that we are so intimidated by systems—capitalism, the patriarchy—that we take that fearful, angry energy out on individuals[3] in cruel ways that are not helpful or sustainable. When I shit on astrology, when hooks’ feminism is met with laughter, we see a reflection of an inner turmoil. A deadly combination of happiness—someone else has been outed for something we love—and fear, that this world is too cruel to allow us to love it openly. Shame—an unassuming, deceitful thing—is a mirror.
III.
The last few years, and the past year especially, have made me an intensely “woo-woo” person. Though the term originated in the 1980’s to mock beliefs associated with the likes of New Age culture during the 1970s and 80s, I personally have heard the term used incessantly in recent months to describe people who believe in things like astrology, divine timing, or manifestation. The novelist and poet Fariha Roisin put my inner monologue into words recently in an essay where she discussed attending an ayahuasca ceremony, a spiritual ritual that is meant to help people heal from past trauma. “I know I’m ‘woo-woo’ and I feel embarrassed about that a lot,” she said. “But, the more I sit in ceremony, the more I see this uncomfortability shift into acceptance. These days I need gentleness, softness. Every time I return back I am struck, again, by the cruelty of capitalism and how it obstructs our connection to each other and nature—making us rely on things that have no importance.” This passage moved me, as did the assumptions lying underneath it: that the “woo-woo” feelings we are meant to be ashamed of are grounded in a shared cultural imagination[4], an ability to envision a world where love, connection, and kindness are valued and prioritized. Just as people laughed when bell hooks spoke of the patriarchy, people today giggle at words like “manifest” or “abundance” because they are terrified: of what exists beyond colonialism, why they cannot envision it, and whether they will ever reach it.
The extent to which capitalism has perverted human connection[5] cannot be overstated. Though I often think back fondly on our pre-COVID days, if I truly were to meditate on the ways I approached relationships before 2020, I would be forced to reckon with how low connection ranked on my list of priorities. An avid user of Google Calendar, I would often fill up my digital days with working, studying, writing, and class, and then squeeze in a coffee with a friend where I could. When I did go to parties or spend a night with friends, my mind was often racing, wracked with guilt over the work or obligations I was ignoring. I think back to a year ago, at how preoccupied I had become with work and career ambitions and how little I valued cherishing my community, and I can feel it bubbling up in the pit of my stomach—shame. What I am not ashamed to admit is that I don’t want to live like that anymore. I am no longer interested in catching up with anyone over coffee. I want a life of pleasure, fun, and genuine love. This kind of connection has real power, true revolutionary potential—which helps explain why it’s so rare.
A societal prioritization of productivity over pleasure has left many reliant on shaming as a sole form of connection. A couple weeks ago, I received several horrific, vitriolic messages from bigots online—something that’s happened to me before, and an unfortunately common occurrence for marginalized journalists. When I showed the messages to a friend, she shrugged, insisting, “people are miserable.” The weight of those words, and the truth of them, cuts deep. Yes, so many people are so, so miserable. And what the fuck are we all doing about it?
IV.
Shame has ruled so much of my life. For years it dictated how I dressed, what I posted online, what music and TV I was open about liking—how I allowed others to perceive me. A year ago, I would have never, ever published essays like these on to the internet for anyone to read. A year ago, I did not understand that art could be “raw” in its truest sense—that those who read my words might put their hands under my skin, prove the frailty of my muscles and the strength of my bones. Not much has changed in a year, but there is this: I am slowly releasing shame. I have not yet made it to the place I hope to be but I am inching my way there.
In her essay, Roisin writes: “The paradox of healing is that you have to look at the darkness to retain your lightness. The paradox of life is you can’t have one without the other.” I do not think we can arrive at healing until we do our best to release our shame. We are ashamed to admit that we are exhausted, that we are afraid, that sometimes we do not like ourselves very much, that we feel like we cannot trust each other, that we worry we may never belong to each other. Shame leads to dishonesty and dishonesty breeds malice, which seeps into our study, our organizing, our relationships, and our very sense of self. It makes us look in the mirror too long and too hard. Forces us to turn laughter into a dangerous thing.
In recent years when discussing harm I have often heard the phrase that “hurt people hurt people.” In my experience, this is often true. But this narrative is missing a crucial element of the dynamic between individuals and their community. When we allow ourselves to be shamed into a lesser version of who we are—which I have countless times in the past—we are hurting both ourselves and everyone around us. When we are honest about needing love, care, or rest, we can stop projecting these desires onto others as evil. Hurt people hurt people, yes, but healed people heal people too—I no longer feel shame over the work I’m doing to heal myself and others, no matter how “woo-woo” it might seem.
Woman at a Mirror, Meiffren Conte, Fleming Museum
Thank you so much for reading! If this story spoke to you, please consider sharing with a friend or two. If you have the means and would like to support me, feel free to do so through Venmo (@Mary-Retta) or Paypal (maryretta33@gmail.com). If you’d like to see more of my work, you should subscribe to this newsletter or follow me on Twitter (@mary__retta.) Be well and more soon!
xoxo
mary <3
It should be noted that a lot of astrologers take issues with Costar as an app/it’s astrological readings. One astrologer breaks down why here.
I love everything Alicesparklykat writes, but was particularly moved by this “Reparenting Taurus Moon” essay.“We won't end the systemic patterns of harm by isolating and picking off individuals.....our movements are in danger because we don't know how to handle conflict or how to move towards accountability in satisfying and collective ways. it feels like we don't know how to belong to each other, to something big and collective and decolonizing." (brown, “We Will Not Cancel Us”)“The only war is the war against the imagination.” (Diane di Prima)“When we talk about the many things that colonization stole, it's things like this, of having access to the knowledge of what our bodies are telling us and an understanding that we can heal ourselves." (Fariha Roisin, “Embracing The Paradox”)