Jon Ronson is a journalist, author and documentary maker, born in Cardiff in 1967. He is known for books including Them: Adventures with Extremists, The Men Who Stare at Goats, The Psychopath Test and So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, and for the podcast The Butterfly Effect, about how free online porn changed the adult industry.
Brian Rose has interviewed Ronson twice on London Real, in 2013 and 2020. They have talked about his screenplay for the film Frank, squatting in London as a teenager, online shaming, why curiosity keeps him working, and the reporting behind The Butterfly Effect.
Both interviews are listed below in order with a short summary.
The Butterfly Effect: How Free Porn Ruined the Lives of Sex-Workers (March 2020). The fuller conversation: online shaming, curiosity and the story behind his porn industry podcast. For his early life and the film Frank, watch Gonzo Journalist for the Digital Age (2013).
Speaking in 2020, Ronson said the idea for So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed came from watching people lose their jobs over a single tweet or joke. He compared people’s mistakes to mutations that others quickly learn to avoid, while the original post stays online for good. He also said the book had been misused, and that he never meant it as a political statement.
Ronson argues that curiosity is what has kept him working. He said he turned down offers to work on projects he already knew about, because only taking familiar jobs would cost him the curiosity that makes him good at what he does.
His podcast The Butterfly Effect traces how free porn sites changed the adult industry and the lives of the people working in it. He told Brian Rose the project began after a Twitter follower asked whether he had looked at shame in porn, and that he sees podcasting as the wild west of narrative storytelling.
In 2013 Ronson was writing Frank, a film inspired partly by his time playing in Frank Sidebottom’s band, which came out in 2014 with Michael Fassbender in the title role. His book The Men Who Stare at Goats had already been made into a 2009 film.
Jon Ronson is a journalist, author and documentary maker, born in Cardiff in 1967. He wrote Them: Adventures with Extremists, The Men Who Stare at Goats, The Psychopath Test and So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, and made the podcast The Butterfly Effect.
In 2013 he talked about writing the film Frank, squatting in London as a teenager and advice to his younger self. In 2020 he discussed online shaming, curiosity, life in New York and his podcast The Butterfly Effect.
Twice: Gonzo Journalist for the Digital Age in May 2013 and The Butterfly Effect in March 2020.
Start with the 2020 interview, The Butterfly Effect, for his thinking on shame and curiosity. Watch the 2013 interview for his early life and the film Frank.
The Butterfly Effect, released by Audible in 2017, looks at how free online porn sites changed the adult industry and the lives of performers. Ronson discussed it with Brian Rose in 2020.
Published in 2015, the book looks at people whose lives were upended by online pile-ons, often over a single tweet or joke, and what public shaming does to them and to the people taking part.
The book is Ronson’s 2004 non-fiction investigation into a US Army unit interested in New Age and paranormal ideas. It was adapted into a 2009 comedy film starring George Clooney.
Official site: jonronson.com
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