Comment by freedomben

> Still, the viral potential of these kinds of stories is a warning sign that our culture is obsessed with shame, surveillance, and control. An obsession with other people’s private lives is a sickness.

I think (generally speaking) on the internet this is highly exacerbated by the dehumanization of others. For whatever reason, when we aren't face to face, we tend to not connect to the humanness of the people on the other end. This is easily observed when people get into cars and "observe" but don't connect with humans in the other cars who sometimes make suboptimal driving decisions that infringe on sensibilities ("that asshole cut me off! I'll drive recklessly around him to show him how angry I am"). Getting on the internet seems to make this even worse.