While stigma, shame, and judgment have always been a part of human life, we’ve simply swapped out old forms for newer, subtler forms, and the volume of shame and judgment given and received has escalated grotesquely in the age of social media. Scarlet letters are no longer just handed out by the people we know and love. They’re given out by the people we don’t know and don’t love but whose opinions we somehow care about—a lot.
