In 1988, Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson won the Olympic 100m with a new world record of 9.79 seconds. The next day, the doping test of the champion was positive and he was disqualified. One of the newspapers came out with the great headline “From hero to zero in 9.79 seconds.”
Why are we telling you this? Because, in fact, world history is full of cases when a person carefully built their impeccable reputation for years, and then, by some incredible coincidence, spoiled everything, turning into an absolute outcast. Of course, not as fast as 9.79 seconds, but nevertheless…
There is a popular thread on Reddit where a topic starter asked: “Warren Buffet said, ‘It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.’ What’s a real-life example of this?” By now the post has gained almost 50K upvotes, and examples are still being added. From Rudy Giuliani to John DeLorean, from Jim Marshall (sorry, Vikings fans!) to Lance Armstrong, from hero to zero in almost 20K comments.
Bored Panda compiled a selection of the most popular examples from this thread for you, so feel free to scroll to the very end with pleasure, and if you have your own candidate for this list, be sure to write in the comments!
More info: Reddit
#1 Rudy Giuliani
Rudy G could have retired as America’s mayor, instead his obituary will have a picture of his make up dripping during a press conference at a landscape parking lot
Image credits: Possibly-New-5663
#2 The Flat Earth Documentary Authors
That flat earth documentary where they try so hard the entire time and then in the last five minutes they do the measurement with the laser and realise the earth isn’t flat.
Image credits: Flowers2000
#3 Police Officer Cheating On Barcode Scanner
I was just reading a story about how a police officer with a perfect career, ruined everything by buying donuts and scanning a barcode for a carrot to make it cheaper. Lost his job for that.
Image credits: strawberryry
#4 Bill Cosby
Bill Cosby. He was “America’s Dad” for 50 years until a random Hanibal Burress cell-phone bootleg went viral and women started speaking out in droves.
Image credits: GatsbyJunior
#5 Lance Armstrong
Haven’t seen Lance Armstrong’s name yet. Scientists studied his body for years to find the cause of his incredible performance, just to have him openly admit to using steroids.
Image credits: thecelticpagan
#6 Jared Fogle
Jared from subway
Image credits: shaka893P
#7 F&R Auto Sales
A pizza delivery guy was belittled out of tip by rude local car dealership employees. They went really off on one, treating him badly, and threatened to get the pizza delivery guy sacked. The incident was caught on camera, and the internet went out for revenge. The car dealership was review bombed and I think one of the colleagues were fired.
#8 Michael Richards
Michael Richards who played Kramer in Seinfeld.
Ruined his image literally in five minutes when he lost his cool and went on a racist rant
Image credits: jasperfilofax
#9 Ryan Lochte
At one point, Ryan Lochte was arguably on the way to becoming as big in the swimming world as Michael Phelps. Then his lies about being robbed at the Olympics torched his reputation and career
Image credits: Averagejoee1990
#10 Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson.
Image credits: TheChainLink2
#11 Artesian Builds
There was a PC building company earlier this year that disqualified a prize winner because the company owner thought the winner’s social media presence was too weak. Not fake, mind you, just not popular enough to be worth sponsoring.
Image credits: Shibbledibbler
#12 Will Smith
Will smith
Image credits: nls726
#13 A Supervisor Writing A Racist Email And Sending It To Every Subordinate
Had a supervisor who decided to get blitzed on morphine and alcohol before writing a racist, incomprehensible, unprofessional email and sending it to every subordinate. Every single person turned against him, and he was gone from his job really quickly after that. (And he was tenured and everything). Happened in an instant.
Image credits: parkervoice
#14 Justine Sacco
The PR chick traveling to South Africa who tweeted something like, “heading to Africa, hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding, I’m white!”
Turned her phone off for the flight, and by the time she turned it on when she landed, it had gone viral and, if memory serves, she had already lost her job.
Edit: Quite a few people commenting that she must be awful at her job and/or she should have known better.
1. in the earlier days of social media, it was reasonably expected that your posts would remain private among your network. This is one of the first cases of a non-celebrity post going viral and being publicly shamed for it. There was no precedent. Bad judgement? Of course, but 2013 and 2022 are very different times
2. her ability to craft effective corporate communications is not diminished by the poor judgement mentioned above that she exercised *once*. Presumably, she was hired by other firms (and perhaps rehired by her old firm) not because of her “fame,” but because she was actually skilled at what she does.
Edit 2: while I haven’t seen it, the sheer number of references to The Family Guy seems to indicate that yes, they did parody this situation in an episode. Seems like Seth McFarlane’s brand of humor.
Image credits: AmigoDelDiabla
#15 Fyre Festival
10,000 Instagram pictures and thousands of social media likes and share. vs one sandwich photo. Rip Fyre festival.
NacreousFink added:
I believe there were some other social media posts at that time that was also bad for Fyre Festival’s reputation.
And there was that one guy who for months in advance was warning people that the Fyre Festival was a scam.
Image credits: TheNeftLut
#16 Activision Blizzard
Activision Blizzard
Cometstarlight replied:
And this is on multiple fronts.
Their industry?
-bugged launches, lying about game content, having games with microtransactions totaling up to over $100,000 as a pay to win scheme
Their actual company?
-“Cubicle romps” to harass women co workers, the “Bill Cosby” suite, harassing a woman to suicide, passing over women for promotions because they might “get pregnant and take time off work,” etc.
There is so, so much wrong with that company and the kicker now is that their “in house investigation” said they did nothing wrong.
Image credits: Wide_Importance5038
#17 Game Of Thrones Season 8
Game of thrones season 8
Image credits: solitaryp
#18 The R/Antiwork Mod
The r/antiwork mod that did an interview with Fox News and completely tanked the sub’s momentum almost overnight.
Image credits: SquilliamFancySon95
#19 Dreamworld Theme Park In Gold Coast
On the Gold Coast in Australia, the theme park Dreamworld lost all it’s reputation after 4 people [passed away] in an accident.
#20 Jim Marshall
Jim Marshall. One of the greatest defensive linemen in NFL football history.
To quote vikings.com : “A valued member of Minnesota’s “Purple People Eaters” defensive line, Marshall holds numerous NFL records that include the most seasons played by a defensive player (20, along with Junior Seau and Darrell Green), most consecutive games by a defensive player (282), most consecutive starts by a defensive player (270), and most career fumble recoveries (30). Marshall, who was still a starter at age 42, helped the Vikings win three NFC titles along with the NFL championship in 1969.”
However, one day, in one game, Jim Marshall had a quick lapse in judgement and now almost EVERY NFL fan remembers Jim Marshall for one mistake he made: He picked up a fumble and ran the wrong way.
Image credits: mediumokra
#21 John deLorean
John deLorean- admittedly kinda set up by the FBI for a sting- but the ‘Better than gold’ quote.
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Image credits: Enchant2020
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