An Honest Apology
shirls.me
shirls.me
There's qualified people out there she basically stole from. Stole jobs that should have been theirs, stole attention that could have been directed to something legitimate...
You don't get to apologize for stuff like this and have anyone care, you only get to overcome it. So until she has something to show us, I'd prefer not see her around.
You really hit the nail on the head here. Her pathological addiction to lies deprived hard-working people of opportunities. And it's a blackhole situation – had those opportunities gone to legitimate people, they could have advanced.
Instead, by sucking up all this value, Hornstein destroyed it. Everything she touched had a taint to it. Because everything about her was built on lies, everything she took, everything she accomplished, went nowhere. Good things that could have grown people's businesses or careers instead evaporated forever.
What a poison.
You have NO idea where she is going. Fucking up and learning from it gives you insights and even strengths you cannot have from not fucking up. Who knows, she might one day help people in similar situations, whatever.
had those opportunities gone to legitimate people, they could have advanced.
Right, and because of her, they are now stuck forever. Is that what you're arguing? Because it has to be either that, or that "any penny matters, time is money".. either way, this is a human talking about human stuff, what makes you think you even are competent to reply? You could have used the time you used to write that post to further your career, and now that moment evaporated forever. Better get hustling.
I had a discussion just some hours ago about the same kind of person in France (my frog says hi) and Entertainment. A young woman called Zahia Dehar, who went from underage (17) escort-girl for national soccer players to the Princess of her very own fairytale, working for Karl Lagerfeld, working with renowned brands, getting a documentary about her coming soon,... And of course, with all our morals and stuff, we'll be quick to judge her as "she's just a whore, why care?", and still, she's now more popular than most of us.
"Don't hate the player, play the game."
Be it Zahia, Kim Kardashian, Shirley Hornstein,...aren't they just the female versions of Frank Abagnale, or even a twisted (as in "I do stuff for me, not for curiosity's sake") version our very own Kevin Mitnick? Like it or not, these persons are "hacking" their way to fame. Do they use the right methods? We're enclined to think "no" but it's a matter of personal view.
These three girls never stole anything. They cheated they way, yes: they used the system, the system WE built. One used fake credentials and network because some people value "who-you-know" more than "what-you-can-do", one went on to have a show about her to get simple minds addicted to her private life and the last one sold her body to make more money in her prime than most of us will do in a lifetime.
Now what about us, are we accomplishing anything by wasting time here bitching about it or are we just complaining that we didn't take those "opportunities" ourselves?
...What are you talking about? She stole money from multiple people and companies. She took someone's credit card out of their hotel room and used it for her own purposes.
Moreover, Abagnale went to prison. As he deserved to. He was a thief.
Just like Hornstein.
...money and credit cards?
Conversion, breach of contract, breach of trust etc is not the same as theft or robbery. The first group rely on trust and in these cases money / credit cards have come from someone. This comes back to if people are too trusting what is the value of these things; again this does not make it right either ethically or morally.
I would argue that breaking and entering, robbery, mugging are a different beast, and more serious. Conflating these two types of wrong may give the wrong impression.
Once again I haven't followed this particular story enough to know whether she has participated in the second as well as the first.
She's a thief.
http://betabeat.com/2012/08/shirley-hornstein-shirls-credit-...
She physically removed a credit card from someone else's hotel room. Read.
http://betabeat.com/2012/08/shirley-hornstein-shirls-credit-...
She says she has "an addictive relationship with lying". I think she's addicted to attention and lying is means to that end.
1) Lie for attention.
2) Get caught.
3) Find yourself dismissed and forgotten.
4) Apologize for attention.
If everyone ignores her she'll disappear.
It would be an incredibly boring story of overly rich people who should know better being scammed, except insofar as it shows some unsavory aspects of how Silicon Valley is set up.
I dumped a girlfriend about two months ago for this reason, after finding several lies (for example, I searched for resumes she had sent, and found three different age of births... why lie your age of birth on a resume?) I figured that there are no way to know what parts are true and what are not, I found no pattern, it is impossible to know when she lies and when she don't.
And after reading about Ms. Shirley, I felt like I was reading about my ex-girlfriend (including stuff in the comments, like people that DO like her, but did not knew she lied so much), I am upset that I cannot believe her anymore. I am upset that I don't know if the good moments were actually good, or acting. If the praises were sincere, or manipulation...
I am not sure why though.
http://peterfeld.tumblr.com/post/588040110/im-not-upset-that...
"Not that you lied to me, it's that I don't believe you anymore that have shocked me." (Beyond Good and Evil, 1886)
There's no difference between someone with a fake photo near Justin Timberlake and a real one. It's not an achivement. It's not a sign of success. It's nothing. The whole idea of "startup cred" gained by having photos of you around important people disgusts me to no end.
Fruitful interactions matter. Posing in photos does not. If you infer something from someone being on a same photo with someone else, you are the problem, not Shirley.
I see this as a sign that most people in the "Scene" are empty extroverts too busy making impressions to make any real things happen. So you measure each other by a number of "important" people you talked to.
And that's a totally not a good thing. It's okay for teenagers if they're lucky, but grown up тусовщик is a kind of miserable lifestyle.
And now you propose there are good, real тусовщики and bad, fake тусовщики. This is extremelly strange to my ear. It's like having fake alcoholics blamed for being fake.
I hesitate something like that to be instantly apologized away. We all fall down, we all make mistakes. Learn from those mistakes instead of trying to just get by.
Have you even read the article? Here's a quote:
"please know this is not an excuse — because there is none."
and
"My focus now is to embrace my true self, seek forgiveness from those I have wronged, repair any outstanding damage, and learn to speak honestly from my heart. I hope I get the chance to prove this to you."
Doesn't sound like someone is looking for an easy way to sweep this under the carpet to me, at all. So some reactions here are kinda curious to me. I mean sure, I don't care either: I wasn't emotionally involved with the fact that this stranger lied to other strangers, so I don't care about the apology either, it's just not something that concerns me. But I assume it didn't really affect anyone who is now being a hard-ass about her public apology, either.
being a serial deceiver is no way to live a life.
You say that as if that is not exactly what she wrote, too. wtf?
I say good for her, and good luck. Having had relationships with chronical liars, I often thought, as much as all of that sucked and hurt, that I would MUCH rather be lied to, than be addicted to telling lies, because I'm sure that hurts, too.
You know, I'd even go so far to say that usually(!), it hurts the chronical liar much more than the people they're lying to, especially when it's to be loved or respected; they really do want that respect, so desperately so that they're willing to lie for it; but what is respected is an image they made up, a lie they told. To me this is like a junkie robbing someone; yeah, that sucks, but being a junkie sucks so much more.
Mind you, I am merely arguing for compassion, not justifying lies. But one thing is sure, unless you were directly affected by any of this, it's simply not your place to accept or reject this apology.
It would be wrong of me to judge someone I've never met before, though I believe her behavior speaks for itself. She may very well be seeking to change her behaviors, but given the reason for which she felt it necessary to write an apology, I will wait to see what Shirley is up to in a few months.
To repent is one thing, but to demonstrate positive steps forward is another.
I wish her well.
If I'd done something comparable, I fear that I'd find it very hard to get straight without a little more basic human goodwill than is evidenced in this thread.
Anyway, this is between her and the people she deceived, and I am hopeful that people closer to it would react less petty... I mean, maybe I missed something, but what's even the big deal? What, exactly, was the huge harm that was done here? Oh god, she TOOK away jobs others should have had; it's not like she was given them, no no no, she snatched them with her decepta-claws, people were helpless against the might of photoshop. Instead of, say, people giving a fuck about who you know too much, and about what people supposedly did, more than they care (or even pay attention to) what people are saying or doing this moment causing those job mis-allocations, having caused them before that, and still being causing them. The in crowd is not the problem, faking membership is. It's a meritocracy, after all! You couldn't make this stuff up, really.
It's not like she became a brain surgeon or president under false pretenses, it was just some web crap, right? Right?! Just consider Bush and Mr. Hope & Change, and this quote, which is so depressingly accurate today as it probably was then: "We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." (Aesop) It's easy to bash a young girl who got caught, lost her job, is seeking counseling; that is the lowest hanging fruit there is. Sure, one doesn't exclude the other, and I'm not claiming anyone bashing her isn't also bashing other deception; but still, I call bollocks on this.
She got found out, she came clean, she basically only just started working on herself; what more do you want? Hopefully she'll find the strength (support is nice, inner strength is nicer) to open new doors for herself; she always missed out on being the same person on the inside as on the outside, so she has a lot of cool things to discover.. who wouldn't be happy for that? So to Mr. and Mrs. Snarky Pants I have to say something else Nietzsche said (about Christianity), something along the lines of something that crawls on the ground snatching at anything attempting to fly. It's just disgusting to flaunt Nietzsche to be petty and small-minded. That's some serious clown shit.
Remember the soul searching about Aaron asking for help on HN? I don't bring that up to play with emotions; Someone asking for help, someone asking for forgiveness, same fucking thing. "You broke it, you own it", "I am not convinced until I really see anything, like, she has to contribute to open source and shit, and until then I'm going to be an ass" -- yeah, right. I really have to stress, who even asked any of you, how can you forgive something that was not done to you? The answer is of course nobody, and not at all. Good we cleared that up then huh ^^
Also I think it's insulting to compare this girl's social media antics with Aaron Schwartz's trials and tribulation.
My, perhaps heavily biased, impression is that this is a typical American thing. I mean, what are the odds that all those people who did bad things (or things considered as bad) feel truly sorry? E.g. Lance Armstrong.
Why not be honest and say "I lied"/"I cheated", "deal with it"? That would garner more respect from me than an apology that is going to sound false.
From TLP:
"But I want to change, I want to get better."
Narcissism says: I, me. Never you, them.
No one ever asks me, ever, "I think I'm a narcissist, and I'm worried I'm hurting my family." No one ever asks me, "I think I'm too controlling, I'm trying to subtly manipulate my girlfriend not to notice other people's qualities." No one ever, ever, ever asks me, "I am often consumed by irrational rage, I am unable to feel guilt, only shame, and when I am caught, found out, exposed, I try to break down those around me so they feel worse than I do, so they are too miserable to look down on me."
If that was what they asked, I would tell them them change is within grasp. But.
"So all is lost?"
Describe yourself: your traits, qualities, both good and bad.
Do not use the word "am."
Practice this."
- http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/01/can_narcissism_be_cur...