There was an interesting article in the New York Times about canceled pop culture stars making a comeback. Everyone makes mistakes in life and it’s not easy to be judged in the court of public opinion. Unfortunately news outlets know that stories about people’s failings generate far more clicks and interest than stories about a person’s good deeds.
When there is a scandal and someone is canceled, the court of public opinion doesn’t issue them a sentence to the effect of you’re in the doghouse for x years. They’re just there and they’re there until they aren’t.
Who decides when their punishment is over? That’s a great question.
The answer is that it depends. It depends on the person and it depends on the nature of their crime so to speak.
But let’s say someone was canceled because it was discovered they said some inappropriate things a number of years ago.
Who’s to rule on when they’re allowed to return to society?
Sometimes all it takes is for someone to hire them. Then there is news about this and it gets the news cycle going. One thing leads to another and before you know it, they’re back.
But if they did something really serious, the path may not be so straightforward. They may have to not only show but demonstrate serious remorse and gain forgiveness from those they wronged.
Then there is the issue that sometimes the online doesn’t match the offline. By this it’s meant that they’re not a celebrity or public figure by any stretch of the imagination but they did something wrong, were punished for it and there were news articles about this that appear prominently if they’re googled.
And it’s these results that are preventing them from moving on and gaining closure. This is a Catch-22 as many won’t be interested in hiring them or dating them or doing whatever with them whatever the case may be simply because of these articles.
But if they hadn’t googled this person, they would have never known about it.
In this case, a person has to do classic online reputation management because until page 1 of google is cleaned up, they will never be able to move on with their life.
When it comes to a celebrity, the same media who liked to criticize and throw the book at them can also be the exact same people who celebrate their comeback.