Monica Lewinsky reflected on her time in the public eye and the impact of the “digital revolution” in the wake of her presidential affair at a TED talk in Vancouver on Thursday.
“I was Patient Zero of losing a personal reputation on a global scale almost instantaneously,” she said.
{mosads}Political scandals going viral online are commonplace now. But Lewinsky said her rise to infamy in 1998 after her sexual relationship with President Clinton was “unprecedented” and dehumanizing.
“I was branded as a tramp, tart, slut, whore, bimbo and, of course, ‘that woman,’ ” she said. “It was easy to forget ‘that woman’ was dimensional and had a soul.”
“When this happened to me, 17 years ago, there was no name for it. Now we call it cyber bullying.”
Lewinsky said she had a breakthrough about her own experiences after the suicide of Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers University freshman who committed suicide in 2010. Clementi killed himself after his roommate used a webcam to secretly watch a tryst between Clementi and another man.
“Tyler’s tragic, senseless death was a turning point for me,” she said.
“Every day online, people — especially young people who are not developmentally equipped to handle this — are so abused and humiliated that they can’t imagine living to the next day.”
Lewinsky called for the return of “compassion and empathy” in society. “Public humiliation as a blood sport has to stop,” she said.
Lewinsky also spoke of regretting her involvement with Clinton.
“At the age of 22, I fell in love with my boss,” she said to start her TED talk. “At the age of 24, I learned the devastating consequences. Who didn’t make a mistake at 22?”
Lewinsky made similar points in an October speech in Philadelphia, where she said that while she “deeply regrets” the scandal, she considers herself a “survivor” of the “shame game.”