How Woke Became a Weapon

Call-out culture began to protect marginalized communities. Now, woke-shaming threatens to tear them apart.

Caitlin White
Oct 19, 2018 · 13 min read
Illustration: barbaramarini/Getty Images
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Shame is an epidemic in our culture, and to get out from underneath it, to find our way back to each other, we have to understand how it affects us.

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Digital Trauma
Digital Trauma
Digital Trauma

About this Series

Digital Trauma

Using the framework of emotional reporting, Caitlin White weaves her own subjective experiences of electronic aggression, secondary trauma and various types of public shaming in with objective, scientific research and the stories of others who’ve shared similar encounters. As social media and the internet occupy a larger and larger role in modern culture, technology increasingly impacts our relationships and emotional states. But the ramifications of our behavior in digital spaces are still largely unclear. How do we talk about pain that occurs online? And, more importantly, how do we recover?

Using the framework of emotional reporting, Caitlin White weaves her own subjective experiences of electronic aggression, secondary trauma and various types of public shaming in with objective, scientific research and the stories of others who’ve shared similar encounters. As social media and the internet occupy a larger and larger role in modern culture, technology increasingly impacts our relationships and emotional states. But the ramifications of our behavior in digital spaces are still largely unclear. How do we talk about pain that occurs online? And, more importantly, how do we recover?

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