People Share The Craziest 'It Takes Years To Build A Reputation But Minutes To Ruin It' Experiences

Reputation is everything. And it's fragile. But just try to be your best self and you should be fine. Maybe.

Bye Brooke

"Youtuber Brooke Houts. Uploaded a wrong video, in which she was abusing her dog."

truthrevealer07

"popular enough"

"Artesian builds. CEO destroyed the entire company by deciding a winner of their raffle wasn't 'popular enough' to get the prize."

bulboustadpole

The best and most ironic part of this? Their sh**ty attitude towards the winner meant that a bunch of companies went to the winner and offered them a free PC and sponsorship."

"Thus giving the winner way more than they'd otherwise have won and ensuring that those other companies signed on a trending streamer due to their publicity in the incident. Artesian literally hamstrung themselves and handed their competition all their business."

AlkalineArts

Pervert

"Had a teacher in high school that everyone loved. He always helped kids who were being bullied, fully sat down with us and tried to mediate any conflict in groups as well. No one had a bad thing to say about him. One day a news story breaks that a teacher was caught filming up girls. Next day our favourite teacher had taken a few 'personal days.'"

"Everyone defended him saying it was only a coincidence that he was gone. We knew it was him when they started talking to girls from our school. They found footage of underage girls on his work laptop, 99% were students. Destroyed his career, family and life."

forgotten-cifer

'Communicator of the Year'

"Kelly Blazek used to run a closed job board for Cleveland area openings, mostly marketing-related. A young professional dm’d her on LinkedIn and her nasty response was so profoundly awful it went viral. I think she even had a 'communicator of the year' award revoked."

"After all this, I think she fell off the face of the internet. She went from someone who functioned as a clearing house for job listings to a household name due to her unprofessional behavior. Article: https://www.cnn.com/2014/02/27/tech/web/linked-in-cleveland-job-bank/index.html"

vorschlaghammer

Don't Lie

"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."

Averagejoee1990

Oh Ryan... what were you thinking? Were you thinking?

Nice Suit

"That X Factor judge who told a contestant, wearing a SUIT that he was trying to copy her husband lmfao. I think Natalia Kills was her name."

roamingaroundhere

The Coast

"On the Gold Coast in Australia, the theme park Dreamworld lost all it’s reputation after 4 people died in an accident."

Ok-Emergency-1382

I didn’t remember hearing about this so I looked into it. Tragic. 3 of the 4 people killed were in the same family (brother/sister/brothers boyfriend).

"Then, several years later, the sisters husband seems to have committed suicide by intentionally entering floodwaters:"

"https://www.kidspot.com.au/news/dreamworld-ride-tragedy-grows-victims-partner-missing/news-story/3c3974d47078f5412d9db67baa97289f?amp&nk=cf00a165a72f94fd94994c28ddf451c5-1655603822"

ThreeFingeredTypist

“perfect”

"A former boss in the Army did it. He was son of a general, airborne ranger, and had a family right out of stepford wives. He was the 'perfect' soldier and family man. Until one day it was found out he was banging an interpreter he met in Iraq.

"He hid this for a number of years, but it was eventually discovered that he was flying her all around Europe on US Air Force planes in order to keep her close and keep it a secret from his wife."

"The Army found out and he was forced into retirement and had to pay several hundred thousand to cover the cost of the misappropriated aircraft. The divorce proceedings were quite comical as well. Made the military newspapers and everything."

BigSkyMountains

'Institute of Directors'

"Gerald Ratner. At one time 'Ratners' were a nationwide chain of jewelry shops in the UK, they were known as an 'affordable' jewelry shop. In 1991 he was a guest at the 'Institute of Directors' and made a speech where he called the stuff sold by his shops, 'total Crap.'"

"A popular range of earrings was described as being cheaper than a prawn sandwich and compounded it by saying the prawn sandwich would last longer. Shares in the company dropped like a stone and he was fired by the majority company shareholders."

ArcTan_Pete

In an Instant

"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."

parkervoice

Bad Memories

"This well renowned family I used to go to church with, they were the prime example of a loving happy family. Years later it comes out the husband was having an affair, divorce, and he moved out of town, the church didn’t accept him anymore, neither did the community. The family also moved away cause they just couldn’t stay in the same town anymore because the affair caused bad memories, they needed to start over."

Inevitable_Repair625

Lies

"I knew a girl who worked her a*se off to get into a doctorate school. She got expelled because she cheated on the first exam and was caught by a professor."

InnocentTailor

"That sucks, but I have to admit that it was right. Academic honesty is a pretty basic trait for a doctorate."

Yo_mama_buys_A1JX52

Perfect Career

"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."

strawberryry

"Real thing apparently, the UK cop paid 7 pence (nine cents) for a 7.75 pound (9.50$) box of donuts. Stealing donuts is the most stereotypical corrupt cop crime."

Tylomin

$$$ 4 Life

"There was a Publisher's Clearing House 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."

Shibbledibbler

Bad Dudes

"Matt Lauer! That dude got wiped from NBC history."

Some-Tall-Guy75

"Similarly Brian Williams. One of the most famous and trusted news anchors, running NBC nightly news for 11 years. Then a story broke about him having false or misleading reporting and comments from years earlier about the Iraq War, then he got the boot. Didn't fall as far - ended up doing some minor show on MSNBC, but a relatively huge and nearly instantaneous drop."

jodax00

'The Word'

"Shabba Ranks. He was genuinely being described as 'the new Bob Marley'. Then he appeared on 'The Word' and stated that the punishment for homosexuality should be crucifixion. You can see almost see the exact moment his career ended."

paulydee76

Bombed

"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."

REDDIT

Oh Lance

"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."

thecelticpagan

The Dead

"Nelson Rockefeller was Governor of New York before serving as vice-president under Gerald Ford. He was found dead at his secret townhome. His wife wasn't there but his girlfriend was. She was 49 years younger than him."

"'Rockefeller's Law' states, 'Never do anything you wouldn't be caught dead doing.'"

copperdomebodhi

Be better. Don't let life ruin who you are. It only takes an instant to take down who you are.