The linked post by @Jackmannii has cites to a woman who was recorded on a drunken rampage in a restaurant, which recording went viral, then she lost her pretty good job when her employer found out.
To which I directly reply:
Now she really has a reason to drink.
Which event raises a meta question and the topic of this thread:
Over the last decade-ish there have certainly been many folks who’ve lost their job after a vid of their personal rampage happened to go viral, rather than any of the other hundred crazy rampages that happened that very day across this oh-so-tranquil land of ours.
I wonder what the lasting consequences are for viral rampagers?
e.g. Will this woman be unemployable the rest of her life except as some anonymous low level disposable worker in a disposable job? Will her infamy blow over in the proverbial 15 minutes and she’ll have no challenge getting a similar job at a similar company within a few weeks? The internet is everywhere of course, but will her infamy be tied to the SF bay area, such that changing cities erases her scarlet letter? For somebody where the rampage was mostly booze- or drug-fueled, does successful medical rehab do any good to also rehab their reputation? etc.
IMO …
There’s a certain schadenfreude in seeing jerks get their comeuppance, but I’d much rather all rampagers suffer, not just the teeny percentage that happen to somehow go viral. Justice, even vigilante justice, ought not be random. And especially not low-probability random.
But at the same time, is permanent banishment to the ranks of the working poor a punishment that fits the crime? Or does that even happen?
I’ve got thoughts, but no evidence. And the big insightful guess is It Varies.
The rampagers will have a strike against them in the same way an ex-con will have a strike. But with less permanent paperwork. It’s likely they could find another mid-level good job in 4 or 5 years. A move to another city could help.
In the current political environment, a viral rampager might receive hiring preference in Washington or in some red states. Hell, the rampage could be a springboard to political office.
I suspect that long-term outcomes vary with the offense and whether criminal activity is involved.
Justine Sacco was an exec who lost her job over a dumb/offensive social media post.
She seems to have overcome the fallout.
Getting drunk and attacking restaurant staff, then continuing an assault outside might be harder to overlook, especially if employers decide the incident reflects deeper issues. But with so many people acting out, the availability of p.r. tools to cover up the past on Internet searches, and news media propensity to whitewash their sites and wipe out criminal histories, it’s doubtful that this person will be unemployed for long.
The British journalist Jon Ronson wrote a book a decade ago called So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed about such incidents and their impact, though I have not read it.
And, possibly, the level at which the jerk worked. @Northern_Piper 's example is of a C-level executive, and that may make it harder to get a new job, because of the visibility. A worker bee at a smaller company? Maybe easier to start over.
There was the notorious “Central Park Karen” Amy Cooper, who in 2020 was recorded calling 911 on Black birdwatcher Christian Cooper (no relation), claiming that an “African-American man” was “threatening” her, when he asked her to comply with Park rules by leashing her dog (who was running loose and startling the birds).
In 2023 she wrote that she “still can’t get a job that meets my qualifications”, and is “still in hiding” (not sure what that even means). I think she returned to her native Canada after being fired as a result of that incident.
An HR executive caught on the big screen at a Coldplay concert embracing her boss has described how “the harassment has never ended” following the viral moment.
Kristin Cabot has spoken publicly for the first time about the video in which she was seen hugging Andy Byron, then-CEO of tech company Astronomer, at the show in July, before they abruptly ducked and hid from the camera.
Ms Cabot, 53, who was the company’s chief people officer, stepped down following Mr Byron’s resignation after the firm announced he would be placed on leave and investigated.
Speaking to the Times, Ms Cabot said she is looking for another job but has been told she is “unemployable”.
While it is understandable why their company didn’t want anything more to do with them [boss-subordinate relationship], it’s odd that she has problems now.
You’d think that’d be true of PR reps, too, but @Jackmannii 's example still managed to rebound.
One point that I suspect in a lot of these cases: If someone’s a jerk in some aspect of their life, they’re probably a jerk in others. Some of these folks, their employers probably already wanted to be rid of them, due to a succession of more minor offenses, and just needed a tangible reason they could point to. If someone does actually heed the wake-up call and reform themself, they might be able to hold on to the next job, even after their new boss finds out… or they might remain the same jerk, and the new boss wants to get rid of them, too.
My opinion on this is colored by having grown up in a small, insular town. People want to live in small towns and integral city neighborhoods, where they have minimal contact with other people that they don’t know. But then they sometimes know too much about each other. Architects, city planners, and business disrupters have done much to destroy this community preference, and people took refuge by cocooning themselves inside their homes with tv and radio. The internet only removed editorial oversight on the original desire to know everything possible about others while still keeping them at a distance (q.v. the old saying about Milwaukee’s 16th Street Viaduct being the world’s longest bridge because it ran between Poland and Africa). I’d like to think the internet has made the football team who raped the unconscious girl the targets of the all-knowing public, rather than the girl herself; as it had been back in the bad old days. But I’m skeptical about the overall impulse to know as much about people we don’t give a damn about, as I am about my own impulse to type messages into the internet like this.
A friend of mine claims that employers doing an online search of their applicants is SOP. I’d like to believe it’s not true, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was.
Oh I’m with you. Stadtluft macht frei (“City air makes you free”), “but you shag one sheep…” and all that. But most people want to be oriented to manageable environments, and when they do venture out, want it to be in safe places like Disneyland. And, to the OP, public shaming is the coin of the realm.
The ratfucker cop who murdered Tamir Rice keeps insisting on going for cop jobs (probably slobbering for the chance to murder with impunity AGAIN) but has just been fired from his fourth job due to public outcry. I guess people don’t want trigger happy child murderers being allowed to carry guns and threaten people in their towns, who knew?
I think shooting a boy in cold blood goes a bit further than the “viral rage” that is the topic of this thread.
Unlike some of the viral ragers, who might eventually live down harsh words or emotional explosions, I don’t think he should ever live it down, as a matter of public safety.
I see this guy on YouTube who calls out the public to name jerks acting out.
He researches, asks people who might know him to confront him in real life. Asks employers to get rid of them by naming their company if he see logos on their attire or vehicle.
Yeah. This seems like calling for the public to abuse someone who maybe was having a bad moment or a trying day. Not right. IMO
Sure, the person shouldn’t be acting the idiot on service workers or a another person in traffic. Wrong on so many levels.
Can anyone say they never been so irritated in traffic or a drive thru that they acted out in a way that’s not their normal behavior? And were ashamed later. I know I’ve been that irritated.
But the obvious Karen’s in the wild are the worst.
If it’s not all an act and faked online. Which I’ve seen.
(Sure, killing someone or real acts of violence should be dealt with)
I’ve often wondered about this sort of thing, but I’m more interested in whether they learned anything and became better people, and I suspect that any who did will have fallen off the radar and we’ll never find out. So we only see the anecdotes of the ones who didn’t learn anything, who think their troubles are everyone else’s fault, and that it’s just not fair. I don’t feel particularly sorry for most of those folks.
There are things people in that situation can do, especially if they want to embrace real change. They can get treatment for alcohol abuse, they can get therapy for personality problems, they can do charity work in the field in which they have offended. Most of all, they can be honest going forward and say to future potential employers: Yes, I did this thing, I am ashamed of it, I have learned better, and I am working to make sure I never do anything that stupid and heartless again. If they are prepared to start again at a lower level and to walk the walk of reform, I hope that they would be able to recover their lives.
Yeah, hopefully they can learn from it and become better people. I think that’s more likely with people who were under the influence of a mood altering substance or in a state of psychosis. They may not have realized what kind of person they turn into when they’re in that state. The unfortunate publicity may be eye opening to them and encourage them to find ways to make sure that doesn’t happen again. I’m less likely to believe that raging assholes can be redeemed. Someone who calls 911 on a Black birdwatcher is likely a racist to the core and is unlikely to do some self reflection on how they can improve.
In today’s job market, I’m not sure why an employer would take a chance on a person who has achieved this kind of viral fame. Most jobs have hundreds or thousands of applicants. Unless the rampager has some unique or extraordinary skills, it seems like an employer is better off picking a different candidate.
However, viral fame can be a step forward on the social media income path. The woman who saw something in the back of the plane leveraged her infamy to start an account on OnlyFans. Another path is with a podcast. If someone has a personality that people are interested in, the attention they get from the video may help launch them into a career path as an internet personality.
I have a distant relative who claims to have been fired because of a Facebook post she made about Charlie Kirk. I saw that post, and if she was fired for THAT, they did her a favor in the long run. She got another job shortly afterwards, and she’s in a field where everyone in the area knows each other.
One example I’ve used over the past few years is that of one Brock Allen Turner, who thought he got away with raping a woman because he was a champion college swimmer. In short, last I heard, he was working at a factory, hanging out in college bars, and getting banned from them when the owners find out who he really is. In the meantime, he’s “successfully” used his infamy to pick up girls (yeah, I know). Had he gotten the sentence he deserved, he’d probably be out by now, and even if he wasn’t, nobody outside his hometown would know who he was. Now, everyone potentially knows who he is, and I’d sure hate to be a man who just happens to have that same name.
