If you had any doubts about the power of Internet shaming, look no further than this week’s resignation of the music publicist whom Amber Coffman, of the band Dirty Projectors, accused of groping her at a bar.
After several other women in the industry tweeted their support and similar stories, the publicist, Heathcliff Berru, of the firm Life or Death PR, apologized and resigned, shuttering his small firm.
Social media lately is long on such stories of abuse — and consequences. In November, adult film star Stoya tweeted that she had been raped by her colleague, James Deen, with whom she’d been in a long-term relationship.
In quick succession, 10 other women in the industry came forward with similar stories about being abused by Deen. This week, Deen — who’d already been dropped by his production company and forced to step down from the board of directors of the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee — saw his home raided as part of a state investigation into allegations of workplace violence and health and safety violations.
In December, comedian Beth Stelling Instagrammed a photo of her bruised body alongside an essay about being physically abused by her ex-boyfriend, comedian Cale Hartmann. That accusation was followed by another female comic accusing Hartmann of abuse.
Say what you will about social media — that it’s distracting and alienating — but it’s become a new and powerful way to share and elicit support for the victims of abuse. Especially for people in the entertainment industry, whose followers number in the thousands or millions: Sexually harass one of these people, and you run the risk of having your name linked with the word “abuser” on the Internet. And, like anything online, that’s never going away.
The snowball effect of Bill Cosby’s being outed as a serial rapist happened, in large part, because of the easy dissemination of information on social media, and the informality with which a victim can come forward with her story. Musicians Kesha and Lady Gaga have both made rape accusations against men in the music industry, spawning public social media discussions about the repercussions women often face when accusing powerful men (Kesha’s career being a sad example.)
Opponents will cite the damning effect of the “court of public opinion,” that the accused are innocent until proven guilty. But the frequency of corroboration — women who are willing to publicly admit they’ve been abused, too — strongly suggests nobody is making it up (as does the statistic about the low frequency of false rape accusations), no matter what Bill Cosby’s supporters may have you believe.
In a culture where women have long been conditioned to keep stories of sexual abuse to themselves, social media offers a ray of hope that there are people out there who will not only believe you — but support you by sharing stories of their own. Celebrities are looked up to as role models for a variety of reasons, many of them fairly frivolous or downright unfounded.
In this new era of rape-culture awareness, though, maybe these brave women in the spotlight really can make a difference.