Shame
15 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 8 ratingsHello. My name is James McMahon, I’m a journalist – I host 'The OCD Chronicles' podcast – and wanted to let you know about a new podcast that I’m launching on the Spoook Media network on August 3rd, 2021. It’s called ‘Shame’, and unsurprisingly it’s about that very thing. That negative self-eviscerating emotion that’s used to control us, crush us and keep us locked in misery. For reasons I’ll get into on the podcast, I’ve been obsessed with shame all my life, and so I’m on a quest to understand what it is about this wretched emotion that hangs around my head, my heart and soul, and tethers me from joy. I’ll be speaking to psychologists, historians – and people who feel shame or have been shamed. If that sounds like something you’re interested in, please subscribe to the podcast today – available, as they say, wherever you get your podcasts!
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Episodes
The Journalist and the Pharma Bro - a conversation with Christie Smythe
May 30, 2022 08:00 - 53 minutes - 36.8 MBOh hello! James McMahon here. It's been a time! I’m currently working on season 2 of Shame, a podcast about... shame, but I thought I’d share one episode of it early, mainly because the person I’m speaking to today - the journalist Christie Smythe - is writing a book, Smirk, about her relationship with the notorious ‘pharma bro’ Martin Shkreli. You know Martin Shkreli. Hedge fund dude. Bit of a troll. Actually, and I say this as a Wu-Tang Clan fan, a lot of a troll. Massively hiked the pric...
An interview with Jon Ronson - he literally wrote the book on shame...
January 26, 2022 16:00 - 46 minutes - 32.1 MBAnd so to the Season 1 finale of Shame! When I started this podcast, I did it for three reasons. One, because I have my own experience with shame, and, at various points in my life, I’ve been gripped by it. This podcast was me working that out, episode to episode – and it’s helped. Meeting other people who’ve had the experience of being shamed, or who carry shame about from something that happened in their lives. It’s helped me find new perspectives – and, as my guest on this episode descr...
How shame changes us - with journalist Katherine Brodsky
January 17, 2022 03:00 - 48 minutes - 33 MBWell, it’s been a time, has it not. Yeah, it’s been ages since a new episode of Shame… a podcast about shame. But now it’s 2022 and now it’s time for a rush of episodes to wrap up Season One of this episodic exploration of the emotion… shame. We kick this run off with a conversation with the journalist Katherine Brodsky, who not only has her own story to tell about the psychological terror of her own public shaming, but on what our societies thirst for critiquing and pillorying others tells...
The brilliance (and cruelty) of gossip, with journalist Rachel Connolly
November 10, 2021 01:00 - 1 hour - 44 MBI’ve had people gossip about me. And I’m no saint, I’ve probably gossiped about other people too. Sometimes when I’m bored I’ll Google ‘professional wrestling gossip’ – I can’t believe I’m telling you that – so I’m as bound to the rewards of tittletattle and scuttlebutt as much as anyone. We all gossip. But what’s the appeal? And what’s it go to do with Shame? I stumbled upon an article by the journalist Rachel Connolly the other day. It was called ‘The Year in Gossip’, for the Hazlitt pu...
Life after Italy. Life after shame. The Amanda Knox interview
November 02, 2021 03:00 - 54 minutes - 37.7 MBFourteen years ago – yesterday in fact, on November 1st, 2007 – British exchange student Meredith Kercher was murdered in Perugia, Italy. She was just 21 years old. The truth about what happened that night isn’t hard to source, despite the hash of misinformation, prejudice and sloppy policework that began being assembled the very moment police were called to the murder scene. What happened to Meredith Kercher is a tragedy. To her loved ones she will be forever missed. But this isn’t a podcas...
How to survive the internet mob - with author and journalist Kat Rosenfield
October 25, 2021 08:00 - 39 minutes - 27.3 MBOn episode eight of Shame, I'm talking to the American author and journalist Kat Rosenfield about exactly why people shame – and what we can do about it. Kat’s got first hand experience of this – I invite you to listen to her interview on Episode 85 of Blocked & Reported, one of my very favourite podcasts – where she breaks down a disturbing incident that threatened to derail her career. As a journalist she’s explored themes of shame, polarisation and digital outrage further – her most rec...
Don't do that. Do this. The rise of The New Puritans, with journalist Rachel Cunliffe
October 05, 2021 06:00 - 41 minutes - 28.8 MBOn episode seven of Shame, I’m speaking to my fellow journalist Rachel Cunliffe, who serves as the Deputy Online Editor of the enduringly fascinating New Statesman. Rachel wrote an article a few weeks back under the headline, ‘Why New Age puritans are the enemies of progress’. Hmmm. I’m into that. This was the standfirst; ‘From sex to Covid to climate change, some people just really like telling others what to do.’ Sounds like someone I should speak to for this podcast, right? Way ahead of...
Escaping God... and shame... with music journalist Jeremy Allen
September 30, 2021 15:00 - 46 minutes - 31.9 MBI guess it was only a matter of time before this podcast got to the subject of religion - and I’m sure it’ll revisit the subject further down the line - but I thought it might be nice to have a conversation with my fellow music journalist Jeremy Allen. Jeremy was a teenage evangelical preacher – all fire and brimstone and all that righteous, and perhaps, deluded stuff. And he’s an alcoholic. And he’s been in a psychiatric hospital. Big brain, probably even bigger heart. His life story is a ...
Everything you ever wanted to know about cancel culture - but were too sure of your moral superiority to ask
September 04, 2021 02:00 - 51 minutes - 35.7 MBOn episode five of Shame, I’m talking to noted US TV producers Rob Rosen and Desma Simon, the creators of a podcast I’ve been gripped by these last few months. It’s called Cancelled and I think it, and the podcast you’re here to listen to, share a great deal in common. The reality of being cancelled is shame at the deep end. In my mind, it’s weaponsized shame, and while the more socially progressive among us might perform all sorts of mental gymnastics in attempting to reframe cancel cultu...
We need to talk (rationally) about incels. We need to talk about shame
August 20, 2021 00:00 - 18 minutes - 13 MBOn this bonus episode of Shame, James McMahon speaks to investigative journalist Naama Kates about the tragic events that took place in Plymouth, England, last week [12/08/21]. And about how understanding shame can perhaps help us better understand the Incel subculture that's so misrepresented within our culture - and help us avoid further tragedies. Since 2019. Naama has created and helmed the excellent Incel podcast on the Crawlspace Network. What she has to say is extremely interesting, ...
They tried to shame Gail Porter. Gail Porter fought back
August 17, 2021 21:00 - 43 minutes - 30.2 MBOn episode four of Shame, host James McMahon has a conversation with the British broadcaster Gail Porter. He's been watching Gail on the television since he was a teenager. He may even have had a poster of her on his wall during those formative years! And this conversation duly hangs around an incident that took place during the final months of the 20th century, when the now defunct - but once hugely popular - men's magazine FHM beamed Gail's naked rear, without her knowledge or consent, ont...
'Maura isn't here to defend herself from being shamed - that's my job now' - a conversation with Julie Murray
August 13, 2021 19:00 - 41 minutes - 28.8 MBIf you have any interest in the true crime genre, you will know the name Maura Murray. She's the internet's favourite missing person, and you probably think you have an idea of who she is - certainly who she was. These are the facts; Maura was an American woman who disappeared on the evening of February 9th, 2004, after a car crash on Route 112 near Woodsville, New Hampshire, a village in the town of Haverhill, USA. Her whereabouts remain unknown. She was a 21-year-old nursing student comple...
Meet the man who curates Twitter's shame - a conversation with Rob Manuel, creator of @Fesshole
August 07, 2021 07:00 - 44 minutes - 30.3 MBThis week, James McMahon is in conversation with Rob Manuel, who created and curates Twitter's dumping ground for shame, @Fesshole. Rob knows a lot about the internet. A fair bit about people too. The internet and the way we use it will be a recurring theme in this podcast series - and where better to begin that story within a story than by speaking to a man who sees shame at its most unpolished and anonymous? Shame is a Spoook Media production. Spoook is also a record label, a promoter, a ...
'I was a victim of revenge porn — I won't live in shame'
August 02, 2021 21:00 - 32 minutes - 22.1 MBHello and welcome to episode one of Shame, a podcast about the wretched emotion that is… shame. I'm your host, James McMahon. I'm a journalist from London, via Yorkshire. This is a podcast about shame, yes, but it’s also a podcast about healing and learnings and psychology and grit. We’re kicking this series off with an interview with Megan J Renee, a twenty-three-year-old woman from Limerick, Ireland, who at the age of 19 became the victim of revenge porn. Her story is inspiring – I don’t ...
COMING SOON! 'Shame'. A podcast about... shame!
July 19, 2021 16:00 - 58 seconds - 702 KBHello. My name is James McMahon, I’m a journalist – I host The OCD Chronicles podcast – and wanted to let you know about a new podcast that I’m launching on the Spoook Media network on August 3rd, 2021. It’s called Shame, and unsurprisingly it’s about that very thing. That negative self-eviscerating emotion that’s used to control us, crush us and keep us locked in misery. For reasons I’ll get into on the podcast, I’ve been obsessed with shame all my life, and so I’m on a quest to understand...