Everyone’s seen it by now: the Coldplay concert, the giant screen, the kiss cam, a hesitant couple. She recoils. The crowd stirs. Realization dawns. And then – inevitably – the tidal wave of online reaction that turned two strangers into a global meme.
I didn’t watch it.
Not for lack of curiosity. I know exactly what happens – I’ve read the headlines, skimmed the commentary, seen the gifs. But I made a deliberate choice not to click. This isn’t a claim to moral high ground. It’s a recognition: every view is oxygen in the bonfire of viral shame. We imagine ourselves spectators; in truth, we are arsonists.
The internet has rebuilt the Roman Colosseum. People are destroyed for our entertainment. With a tap, we cast our vote. And though we may feel detached, our views fuel the machine. Algorithms reward them. Platforms amplify them. Virality isn’t fate – it’s the sum of our clicks. Each one is a ballot, and no ballot is neutral.
That nameless couple will never again be nameless. Whether their marriages survive or not, their reputations, careers, and private lives have been scorched. And we helped strike the match – by quietly pressing play.
Embarrassment isn’t harmless. Neuroimaging shows that social pain – shame, rejection – activates many of the same regions of the brain as physical pain. To broadcast someone’s worst moment and call it “content” is to inflict real injury, cheaply outsourced to an algorithm.
This isn’t abstract for me. I have seen what shame can do.
In 2013, Justine Sacco, then a communications director, posted a crude, racist joke before boarding a flight to Cape Town. While she was in the air, the Twitter mob erupted. By the time she landed, she was trending worldwide. Reporters were waiting at the gate. She lost her job. Her mental health collapsed. The mob moved on. Her life did not.
I think, too, of the children I worked with at Camp Simcha Special, a camp for children with physical disabilities. I saw how strangers stared – not with malice, just quiet curiosity. But the gaze alone weighed on them. No words were needed. Attention, even unspoken, can be a burden. These days, when I see someone who looks off, I remind myself: dignity begins with looking away.
Judaism teaches that public humiliation is akin to bloodshed. The story of Tamar and Judah in Genesis offers a striking example.
Tamar was married to Judah’s eldest son, who died. According to the custom of levirate marriage (if a brother dies without children, his widow marries another brother), she was then wed to his younger brother – who also died. Judah, fearing Tamar was cursed, sent her back to her father’s house under the pretense of waiting for his third son to come of age. He never intended to follow through.
Eventually, Tamar took matters into her own hands. Disguised as a prostitute, she waited for Judah on the roadside and slept with him, conceiving twins. When word reached Judah that Tamar was pregnant, he condemned her to death for immorality.
At that moment, Tamar could have exposed Judah publicly. She had proof – Judah had left his staff and signet ring with her. But instead, she sent the items to him privately, with a simple message: “The man to whom these belong is the father of my child.”
She gave Judah the opportunity to admit the truth himself. She spared him public humiliation – even though he had wronged her.
To his credit, Judah responded, “She is more righteous than I.”
The ethical teaching that flows from this story is profound: better to be thrown into fire than to shame someone in public. Because humiliation – especially public humiliation – is a kind of bloodshed.
We used to understand this, intuitively. There was a time when dignity mattered more than clicks.
Today, that instinct has eroded. The internet moves too fast. It rewards mockery, not mercy.
We tell ourselves it’s “just a meme.” But every meme has a human face.
And every click is a choice – to dignify, or to destroy.
