Who decides what counts as an “ethical” reputation?
Gentle notice: this is not hypnosis. Just thinking out loud.
✦ ᛉ ᚨ ᚷ ᛟ ✦
Or maybe we should step back even further: what is reputation, really?
A quick Google search defines reputation as consideration and esteem. So far, so good.
In hypnosis, the more you trust the hypnotist and their inductions, the more likely it is to work. Though it still might not. Life—and the mind—always take divergent paths.
So then… is it enough that no skeletons are known? That there’s no Reddit thread, no cautionary tale, no moment where someone became an example of “when things went wrong”?
Because there are reputations that were once good, that slowly darkened, and then accusations surfaced. We don’t always know whether those accusations are true—but sometimes doubt alone is enough to trigger a boycott. Stars that began brightly and then collapsed like the foam of a warm beer.
Sometimes I wonder whether those people ever returned to a normal life, or whether they continued surrounded by their loyal followers.
And if nothing is said—does that mean someone is clean?
Because people take time to speak up. For a complaint to turn into an accusation, or for accusations to leak out, many things usually have to happen: a major falling-out, significant harm, a breaking point. And that threshold is blurry.
There may be complaints we never hear. Voices that never reach our ears or our eyes.
How many “clean” reputations are sustained by collective silence?
✦ᛉumeᛋᛇ✦