Who's Really Profiting From Your Shame?

Dr. Eleanor Vance · 2026-10-11

### The Business of Making You Feel Small Ever notice how you feel after scrolling through social media for an hour? Not inspired. Not connected. Just... worse. That's not an accident. Cathy O'Neil, a mathematician and author who studies how data gets weaponized, sat down with Jack Russell Weinstein on the podcast *Why? Philosophical Discussions About Everyday Life* to dig into something deeply uncomfortable: the idea that shame has become a business model. And it's working beautifully — for the people selling it. Think about it. Every time you feel inadequate because someone's vacation looks better than your Tuesday, some algorithm somewhere gets a little reward. Every time you buy something to fix a problem you didn't know you had until 10 minutes ago, a corporation books a win. ### How Shame Became a Product Here's the uncomfortable truth: public humiliation isn't just a side effect of the internet. It's often the point. - **Engagement farming**: Outrage and embarrassment generate clicks. Platforms know this. They've optimized for it. - **Consumer manipulation**: Advertisers have long understood that insecurity sells. You don't buy a $200 skincare routine because you're happy with your skin. - **Social credit systems (informal ones)**: Online pile-ons can destroy reputations in hours. And plenty of people profit from watching it happen. O'Neil points out that this isn't some shadowy conspiracy. It's just capitalism doing what capitalism does — finding a vulnerability and monetizing it. > "The question isn't whether shame is profitable. It's whether we're okay with that." That's the part that should make you pause. Because once you see it, you can't unsee it. ### The Ethics of Exploiting Insecurity Weinstein, a philosopher who's spent years making big ideas accessible, pushes the conversation into murkier territory. Is it immoral to profit from someone's shame if they technically "chose" to engage? That's where things get complicated. Sure, you clicked the link. You bought the thing. You posted the photo. But did you really have a fair shot at opting out? - The algorithms are designed by teams of engineers whose job is to keep you hooked. - The ads are crafted by psychologists who understand your insecurities better than you do. - The social pressure to participate is enormous — especially for younger people. Calling that "free choice" feels like calling a rigged game fair because nobody forced you to play. ### What Can You Actually Do? You're not going to delete the internet. But you can get a little more intentional about how you use it. Start by asking a simple question: *Who benefits from me feeling this way right now?* If the answer is "a company I've never heard of," that's worth noticing. You can also: - Curate your feeds ruthlessly. Unfollow accounts that make you feel worse, not better. - Pause before buying anything marketed as a fix for a personal flaw. - Remember that the version of life you see online is a highlight reel — and often a paid one. None of this solves the bigger problem. But it's a start. ### The Bigger Question The real issue isn't whether shame is profitable. It obviously is. The real question is whether we're willing to keep feeding a system that profits from making us feel small. O'Neil and Weinstein don't offer easy answers. But they do offer something better: a way of seeing the machinery clearly enough to make your own choices about how much of yourself you hand over to it. And honestly? That's a conversation worth having — especially now.