Not so much an evil person, but moreso a fool that fell for conservative and techbro propaganda, John Carmack is insanely smart and intelligent bookwise, but i think his social skills are zilch.
Sandy Petersen is another one i really used to enjoy but the amount of times he’s scammed people out of crowdfunded boardgames has turned me off from anything that has to do with him.
Thankfully John Romero is a great person (afaik) who overcame his ego, probably after Daikatana failed to sell.
A big hero of mine is/was “Weird Al” Yankovic. I feel like out of all celebrities that exist, he’s the one that I probably don’t have to worry about turning out to be a horrible person.
Just paniced by the name. Please tell me he hasn‘t done something bad.
When I was a child in the 60s and 70s John Wayne was my hero and when I grew up I found out what a POS he was.
My childhood heros were the cartoon heros of the 80’s. And they all turned out to be lieing to us the whole time. Saying things like “evil never wins”, “crime doesn’t pay”, and all that. They were really just trying to reduce the competition.
Also, ‘Don’t Do Drugs’.
My grandma. She always seemed the sweetest, kindest lady - freely sharing, donating time and her resources to charity. Yet when Orange Shitler was running for reelection, and she shared campaign propaganda with me after I repeatedly asked her but to, and I then shared with her the already overwhelming evidence of his malfeasance, pedofilia and rape, she simply responded that those things didn’t matter to her because she thought “he’d be good for the economy.”
I haven’t spoken to her since.
Vaporeon
Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew on Loveline.
HOLY SHIT… Did those two unimaginably broken people take, at first different, but eventually converging, paths to the deepest part of hell.
Both irredeemable pieces of garbage.
I listened to that every night as a teenager. Seemed like I was really learning something, but the amount of opinions and broscience that they threw around was awful in retrospect.
Adam did come up with good handyman tips now and again like:
If you have a door that seems warped and sticks or won’t close all the way, try tightening the screws on the hinges before you start shaving it with a plane.
My childhood heroes were Optimus Prime, dinosaurs, and a big bin full of LEGO.
And look what happened to dinosaurs
As they say: “never meet your heroes”. Two out of three ain’t bad.
Neil fuckin Gaiman.
The
manmonster went from my favorite author to a name that elicits rage and disgust.Steve Jobs. There was some magic to him, but also an extremely dark side. I had a corporate bio from the early 90s that made him and Woz seem like superhero partners, when in reality he shorted Wozniak and Esposito and only really looked out for himself. He seemed like a countercultural LSD dropping hippie, and he was some of that, but when it came time to get rich and get his, he went down that path too. Shitty father, terrible boss. None of the things I would say my own life aspires to now.
he got killed by his own hubris, when he was diagnosed with a rare pancreatic cancer, PNET. it was treatable, but he went on a fruit diet to treat it, and plus he paid to be on the top of a list of A LIVER transplant only to waste it with his “fruit diet” it allowed the cancer to spread and kill him. this pancreatic cancer is rare , unlike the common this is much more tretable and slower growing, while the normal ones are usually more aggressive(adenocarcinoma vs PNET) AND USUally ad advanced stage when discovered in patients.
OJ Simpson, Scott Adams, Joss Whedon, friends and family that are MAGA
I was a big Bill Cosby fan, back int he 60s. I had several of his albums, and I’d take them to friends’ houses to listen to them.
I started hearing crazy stuff in the 90s, and then it all turned out to be true. I was heartbroken.
Probably the earliest celebrity from my childhood who turned out to be a POS. I loved Fat Albert.
One of the reasons that Cosby was such a betrayal was because he had such an appeal to children. We didn’t discover him in our teens or adulthood, we followed him as little kids, and his humor became part of our psyche. We had invited him into our minds as a friend, only to later find out that he was a genuine monster.
Yeah, the Bill Cosby As Himself set got quoted a lot in my household growing up.
“To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With,” was my favorite. It was a long, epic story of him and his brother goofing around at bedtime, and their father getting increasingly angry. Still hilarious to this day.
Yup. Tis sad as a lot of that stuff was funny.
Tim Sweeny
Back when Epic was Epic Megagames I played a shitton of their shareware catalogue - ZZT, Jazz Jackrabbit, Epic Pinball, Jill of the Jungle. As a teen I loved Unreal and Unreal Tournament. After Tim sold Epic to Tencent and became a vocal piece of shit I actively avoid all Epic software.
Hulk Hogan. Also, not really a hero, but his work had a log of influence on me- Orson Scott Card. The reasons I liked it so much are kind of cringe looking back as an adult anyway though.
he had PR because vince gave it to him, because Hes is a union breaker, he often snitch on other wrestlers if they were trying unionize or complain. so he get goodies from daddy vince. Also jesse ventura dint make things better, since he abandoned the wreslters because they couldnt unionize for the fear of retribution from vince McMahon if they attempted to unionize.
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.
noam started peddling for PUTIn of all people, putin likely had krompromat. Norm too, he shilled for trump before he died.
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
Duh, even the opposition is just there for someone else to get to power.
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”
