Hacker News Reader

Comment by Overtonwindow | Hacker News Reader

In today's never-forget internet, shaming has become a lifelong death sentence. There is no escaping it.

That's a bit of hyperbole. There are clearly those that are able to live fruitful lives after being shamed. Americans especially love a comeback story. There are numerous people that have done stupid things and come back from them, a pretty public one is Robert Downey Jr.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Downey_Jr.#2001.E2.80.9... :

> Downey was able to return to the big screen only after Mel Gibson [...] paid Downey's insurance bond

> [...] for which producer Joel Silver withheld 40 percent of his salary until after production wrapped as insurance against his addictive behavior. Similar clauses have become standard in his contracts since then.

He's going to carry this stigma for a looong time. If he were only a supporting actor without influential friends he wouldn't be worth the risk; he'd have been fucked.

I'd hardly characterize it as a death sentence though. He's been able to work in his field and found a way to make millions by pretending in front of a camera. If he were only a supporting actor, there's a good chance no one would have noticed at all.

I was completely unaware of Robert Downey Jr's drug-addled past - I just knew him as Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes. I think the public's memory may be a lot shorter than yours.

The problem isn't the audience, it's every employer he'll ever have.

RDJ is a poor example of this. Do you have someone who is not wealthy, or famous for other reasons? Justine Sacco will forever carry the burden of her awful tweet, and in the foreseeable future she's just a Google away from having to relive and be shamed all over again.

That kid with the light saber is, like, an accountant now, or something.

All death sentences are life long ;)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com