<span class="html-content"><p>The first time I heard the name "Monica Lewinsky" I was seated in a fairly large sunday-school hall in the church I used to attend at the time - the guy heading the sermon was trying to explain something he just mentioned and he used the "Bill Clinton Monica Lewinsky" story as an example. </p>
<p>The funny thing was that because of where I was seated in the hall, and the not so great acoustics, I had missed much of what he had said up until that point, but somehow, I got the whole Monica Lewinsky part - and it stuck with me, so much so that I went on to read all about the Monica Lewinsky saga and how it changed her life forever. </p>
<p>This happened nearly 2 decades ago, and fast-forward nearly ten years after this, I was sitting in a much bigger hall, with much better acoustics, looking directly at Monica Lewinsky. Yup, she was seated right there, on stage, invited to talk about cyber-bullying because apparently she is considered the first person to be officially cyber-bullied.</p>
<p>This was in 2015 in Philadelphia, at the Forbes Under-30 summit - my friend and I were there for the 4-day event and this was day 2. Monica Lewinsky had just started her session and like I mentioned earlier she was there to talk about cyber-bullying. </p>
<p>She tried to make everyone laugh by talking about how her name became a rap metaphor for 'having an affair with presidents", citing verses from Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj ("I f**k with presidents, call me Nicki Lewinsky") but the longer she spoke, you could tell that every single person in that crowd had only one thing on their minds. Like the guys on my table - just like me they had this "Yeah right" look on their faces as they listened to her, one of them even had his hand on this mouth to hide the grin on his face.</p>
<p>If you don't know her story, well the summary of it is that while she was an intern at the White House at age 19 or so, she had an affair with the then president of the US, Bill Clinton - it happened several times, and it eventually got out when she was moved to the Pentagon and decided to share the whole thing with an older lady she met there. Clinton almost got impeached but eventually didn't, and in the years after this which coincided with the rise of the internet, she got a lot of hate online, and according to many sources, is regarded as the first person to be cyber-bullied.</p>
<p>What really got me pondering then is how hard it is to clean your slate once it is tainted - scandals are like blood stains, they're super hard to remove. </p>
<p>As I sat there listening to her, I asked myself "What does this woman have to do for people to forget her scandal", is it even possible for people to forget? I mean, as soon as she got on stage, you could see all the wry smiles and feel the 'weirdness' fill the room - never mind that this was a pretty 'woke' or liberal audience. You couldn't help but think that no matter what she does or where she goes, she'll always be "the woman that had an affair with Bill Clinton", I mean, even if she starts a rocket company or cures cancer, she'll still be "the woman who had an affair with Bill Clinton then went on to start a rocket company". </p>
<p>Personally, I think it's unfair to her - she was young and naive when it all happened, I'm not saying she's blameless (she's definitely not) but think about it, she was a 19 year old intern getting attention from the most powerful man in the world, not to mention Bill Clinton's looks at the time, it almost seemed inevitable that she did what she did. For me the worst part of it was how Clinton lied under oath (remember his response? "...I did not have sexual relations with that woman...". 😄😄). Yes the world has moved on from Monica and Bill, but Bill isn't remembered for the scandal, in-fact I almost never think about the scandal when I hear his name, it only ever happens when I hear Monica Lewinsky, and only one think comes to my mind.</p>
<p>Was it because she hadn't built any reputation for herself when it happened? Or because she's a woman? The label was never going to stick on Clinton, I mean he was the president of the US and that's what he was going to be remembered for. </p>
<p>How would things have played out if it had happened in 2023? Would she have been bashed a thousand times harder on social media? What hashtags would people have used on Twitter? How would the feminists defend her ? Would Clinton have survived the heat from the political right? How would Jordan Peterson analyze things? How would Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, Candace Owens, and other conservative/right-leaning commentators have responded? What creative jokes would Trevor Noah have come up with? What opinions would Africans have had on it?</p>
<p>The world never forgets, especially if it's bad - yes we do move on, but we don't forget. </p>
<p>I'd like to get your thoughts on how things would have played out differently if the Monica Lewinsky/Bill Clinton scandal happened in 2023 - would it have been any different? How would social media, wokeism, feminism and an ever-divided political landscape in the US change the Bill and Monica story?</p>
<p>Let me know your thoughts in the comments, thanks for reading!</p>
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