Lewinsky: I was Internet 'Patient Zero'

Monica Lewinsky has been called a lot of names since her affair with President Bill Clinton became public in 1998 - many of them unfit for publication.

She has a different way of describing herself: "I was Patient Zero - the first person ever to have her reputation instantaneously destroyed worldwide via the Internet."

The former White House intern made her comments in an address Monday at the inaugural Forbes Under 30 Summit at the Convention Center, what she called her first major public speaking engagement.

She said she was motivated to speak out against cyber bullying following the death of Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi, who took his own life in 2010 after his roommate shared video online of him kissing another man.

"My mother was unusually upset by the story, and I wondered why. Eventually it dawned on me that she was [being brought] back to 1998, back to a time when I was suicidal, when I, too, might have been humiliated to death," she said. "The Clementis' tragedy was four years ago. Quite sadly, the trend of being humiliated to death online has only continued."

Lewinsky cited a poll of young Facebook users in which 54 percent said they had been cyber bullied.

Though at 41 Lewinsky is outside the conference's target demographic, Forbes editor Randall Lane, in a post promoting the event, wrote that she was a fitting selection because she was in her 20s when she endured the media firestorm.

While many at the conference were children or teens when the scandal broke, they are certainly familiar with her as a reluctant pop culture icon, referenced in the lyrics of Beyoncé, Eminem, Lil Wayne and many more.

"You are an audience of young super-achievers, on average 15 years younger than me," she said. "Some of you may be asking - who the hell is she, this Monica, and, what is she doing here? Or even, what is she doing in all of those rap lyrics?"

Lewinsky jokingly thanked those artists for the shout-outs, but came close to tears as she described the fallout: an FBI sting in a shopping mall, threats of 27 years in prison, the trauma of testifying before a grand jury, and the slurs in the press and online occurring just as the media were settling into the new reality of the 24-hour news cycle.

"When I ask myself how best to describe how the last 16 years have felt, I come back to that one word: shame," she said. "Having survived myself, I want to help other victims of the shame game to survive, too. I want to put my suffering to good use."

Attendees, who listened to Lewinsky's address in between a conversation on whether college is "for suckers" and a panel of twenty-something public-health innovators, said it was hard to trace a clear connection between her speech and the rest of the conference's programming. But some appreciated her message.

"I'm 24, the same age as she was when the scandal came out," said Madison Stanford, a managing partner of the Fort Lauderdale Strikers, a North American Soccer League team. "I thought it was very courageous of her to speak, and I thought it was great that she's using her experience to help stop cyber bullying - it's a great way to use that experience for good."

Marzena Zukowska, 24, of Ashoka, an organization that invests in social entrepreneurs, said she wasn't sure Lewinsky's experience was groundbreaking, pointing out that public shaming dates back to the days of The Scarlet Letter.

"I definitely did try to put myself in her shoes," she said, "and think about the steps you have to take in order to remake your identity, over and over again."

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