Growing up in West Germany during the 1980s and `90s, most of my childhood heroes (Astrid Lingdren, Peter Lustig, Armin Maiwald & Christoph Biemann) have stood the test of time. Peter Lustig, in parts comparable to Mr. Rogers to anyone from the US, fell victim to a public smear campaign by german Springer media corporation after he spoke oout against them. They took some statements he made in an interview totally out of context and tried to mark him as if he hated children.
Hulk Hogan…
What about the anti-theist and leftist public intellectuals like Dawkins, Kraus, and Chomsky who turned out to be somewhere between anti-feminist and full-blown sex-offender? Even NDTyson has some pretty credible accusations for those who remember. Dennett seemed like the only one of the “Four Horseman” who could be considered a decent human being, but nope… he’s flying the Lolita Express.
But nobody has fallen farther than Richard Dawkins. Fame did to Dawkins what the One Ring did to Smeagol.
This is true for me as well and kinda hurts. Dawkins in particular was quite a big part of my radicalisation pipeline/growing up. His books also helped me go through some stuff when I was questioning faith and my beliefs. I still think his books had a very positive impact on me and my approach towards science. But yeah, it’s heartbreaking to see him (and the other horsemen) turn out be a bit of the very thing they swore to destroy
noam started peddling for PUTIn of all people, putin likely had krompromat. Norm too, he shilled for trump before he died.
Man if those are your childhood Heroes you must have had a shit childhood.
Fuck I’ll stand by it man that’s a sad kid. 8-year-old comes up to me and says their hero is Noam Chomsky then that kid needs a hug.
lol. “My little angel loves blazers and Ayn Rand”
Bill Cosby
I guess religious leaders? Genocide between religions put a hamper on that quickly.
All of them, and I haven’t even looked. If anyone is horrible, we all are horrible. My enjoyment of something they did does not change that.
I can’t think of any artist more divorced from their work than Orson Scott Card
He was such an amazing writer. Some of his books and themes in those books broaden lots of horizons around peace, acceptance, gender, and even race. It was clear, at least to me, that when ender used the n-word he was rebuking the other boy for his use of a Chinese slur. That was a positive message in my childhood.
And yet later he goes quite racist with that shit essay about the Obamas, and obviously homophobic in a bunch of his other activities and works.
That being said, In a way I almost don’t blame him for it, he was raised as a member of the LDS Church. While some people break out of the Mormon church, it’s not easily done. The only thing that made his standard Mormon views on these topics “important” or “special” was that he is more famous than most members of the church.
I disagree with him on most things, but he’s been programmed to act that way well beyond anything I experienced in my childhood and had to overcome.
Disappointed is the better word for my views on him.
Bill fucking Cosby. That guy was a generational idol.
Back in the '00s, he used to give speeches down at college campuses around the country that supposedly promoted ethics and social values for young men. The most famous of these, the Pound Cake Speech, was given out during the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision at an NAACP Legal Defense dinner, ffs.
He was this pinnacle of Respectibility Politics. This Model Minority. The quintessential American father figure. An intellectual. A charismatic icon. A pillar of the community.
Oops. Fuck. Oh well…
Oof that speech did not age well. Basically a ignore systemic racism and just pull your bootstraps extra hard coming from a wealthy person is about as hollow as you can get.
Only ones who dissapointed me were Star Trek: Voyager actors. Its the only thing I got attached to as a kid.
Robert Beltran - Commander Chakotay
Roxann Dawson - B’Elanna Torres
Both transphobes and trump supporters who won’t shut up about no one wanting to invite them to Star Trek stuff anymore.
I used to feel bad for Rob because he got such a shit treatment in ST:V in terms of writing and because his character fell victim to Jamake High water’s grifting (look him up if you want to see why 90’s native american characters kinda suck).
Eww, I didn’t know about Dawson.
Roxann Dawson
You sure that isn’t Rosario Dawson instead? I can’t find anything about Roxann Dawson and transphobia. Every search on duckduckgo with her name and transphobe comes up with a Rosario Dawson link.
The two worst actors and actresses in the show too, tbqh. Chacotay couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag.
At least Picardo is loudly and proudly anti trump and seems like a good person from what I’ve heard.
Picardo was great, and Tim Russ was good, but for me, that was one of the most charmless casts in all of the ST series. I don’t know what’s even close, really…
Paris in particular gave me “cardboard cutout” vibes
Geordi LaForge and Wile E. Coyote.
Neither have disappointed me.
Geordi LaForge
“When you’re touching my engines, you’re touching me” probably should have gotten him MeToo’d.
Shaq
Behind on the lore.
What did Shaq do other than nearly every ad in the world? I can accept being a sell out for car insurance but anything egregious?
He evidently did some pretty weird stuff behind the scenes, like being something of a fecal-philiac. I pretty much scrubbed the memory shortly after reading about that stuff, but let’s just say that he had his own, unique way of shittily hazing rookies and so forth…
Nothing publicly, I just ran into him at the burger king on I drive in Orlando at 4am and he was very rude.
Oh was the ice cream machine broke? I hear he gets mad about that
Na. He just wanted to come inside, skip everyone in line, with a gaggle of stereotypes, and pretend like no one would notice him. In the very city that made him famous.
Not really “heroes” but several pastors / youth leaders from when I was young got caught in sex scandals and embezzling. My childhood bully became a youth paster and got convicted of sex crimes against minors.
My parents, unfortunately.
Your parent also completely disappointed me. I saw the Netflix documentary.
Here’s a virtual hug from a stranger. May the road ahead be smoother and more fulfilling, mate.
Turma out the Austrian painter committed horrible crimes in this universe :')
I want to go back to my original timeline
I never really had heroes. I did see some people are more trustworthy or credible but never another I ever gave hero status to. The entire idea seemed strange to me.
I will say I was right about Elon Musk. There was just something about him I couldn’t put my finger on that screamed monster and nobody believed me. I just had a weird ick feeling about him.
I remember having to write a paper in elementary school about my “hero”, instead wrote about how I don’t have one and why.
I think I still got a passing grade at least.
