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[-] VivianRixia@piefed.social 37 points 1 week ago

I used to love Joss Whedon from everything he made. I grew up watching Buffy, and loved Firefly, then Marvel got him for Avengers and I was excited for him to be getting such a big break. He later Agents of Shield which I also loved. But then it came out that he was an abuser. His whole persona of championing strong women was merely a facade to hide this.

Learning that Michelle Trachtenberg (RIP) had a clause in her contract while working in Buffy (2000-3) at age 15 that she was not to ever be in the same room as Whedon alone opened my eyes to just how bad things are. Not just how bad he was, but how well it was known that he was an abuser and no one did anything about it. That's just how things were.

I have a hard time watching Buffy or any of his works anymore, just knowing now that he was behind these things.

[-] snoons@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 week ago

Yeah, it also gives me some closure with firefly being cancelled... like I the fox executive cancelled Firefly because he didn't like Whedon, now I know why he didn't like him. Or at least a probable reason.

[-] VivianRixia@piefed.social 9 points 1 week ago

And it didn't give him a chance to be weird and creepy with Summer Glau.

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[-] kescusay@lemmy.world 32 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Neil Gaiman. I fucking loved Sandman and damn near everything else he wrote. Finding out he's a total scumbag has basically ruined a lot of very dear memories.

[-] sartalon@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago

Yeah, this one hurt.

Good Omens too. Can I pretend it was written entirely by Pratchett?

[-] DagwoodIII@piefed.social 5 points 1 week ago

Read books by Tanith Lee.

Gaiman stole the idea of Death, Evil, and Madness being related from her books.

https://bookshop.org/beta-search?keywords=tanith+lee

[-] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

I asked for Sandman two Christmases ago, before everything came out. Im still glad I read it, it's good, but I wish I would've gotten used copies so at least he didn't make money off it

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[-] Chippys_mittens@lemmy.world 25 points 1 week ago

Used to love watching the Cosby show and watching his stand up specials....

[-] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

When I was a kid I had one of his stand up specials on cassette and I regularly listened to it to fall asleep.

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[-] theywilleatthestars@lemmy.world 24 points 1 week ago
[-] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 points 1 week ago

I literally learned to read so I could read Harry Potter books so I didn't have to wait for bedtime for my dad to read them to me; even though I was a "boy" I badly wanted to be Hermione Granger when I grew up

it's really heart-breaking that she became so deranged and hateful, a lot of us loved her books growing up

[-] aim_at_me@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 week ago

Yeah me too. I literally started to read because I couldn’t wait for mum to start reading and wanted to read past when she stopped.

I was literally sneaking away to read. My parents knew and turned a blind eye, not believing their luck that their son was rebelling by reading haha. I’ll always thank JK for my love of reading. But fuck her politics.

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[-] master_of_unlocking@piefed.zip 22 points 1 week ago

Hulk Hogan. I was such a huge Hulkamaniac as a kid, brother.

[-] albbi@piefed.ca 18 points 1 week ago
[-] alternategait@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I honestly know nothing about him beyond that he was _really _ good at hockey. What’s the 2 second break down?

[-] ageedizzle@piefed.ca 25 points 1 week ago

Gretzky was a Canadian icon. A source of national pride. But when Trump was threatening to annex Canada it came out that Gretzky was a MAGA guy. This caused a widespread sense of betrayal among the Canadian public.

[-] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago
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[-] flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz 18 points 1 week ago

Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, George Soros. I had a period where I appreciated people who played the system to get rich. Before I understood the system itself is the problem.

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[-] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 17 points 1 week ago

I wouldn't say horrible, but the shine definitely faded off Will Smith.

He's made some poor choices over the years.

[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 week ago

My buddy worked in an area that Will Smith occasionally worked.

At every opportunity, will Smith would go out of his way to meet the people around where he was working, talk with them, get selfies, etc, when there was absolutely no need to do it. This was even later in his career when he was really well-known: he'd be walking down a hallway chatting about electrical stuff with a maintenance guy for no reason. I do believe will smith would also return a shopping cart if tested.

The thing where he assaulted someone else on live TV was either out of character, or every appearance from the years before was out of character; exclusively so.

I refuse to believe Will Smith is irredeemable yet.

[-] Eeyore_Syndrome@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 week ago

Kevin Sorbo as Hercules©®™.

And I used to listen to the lost profits as a teenager. ultra sigh

[-] madcaesar@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Bah this one hurt... He didn't just go a bit cookie... Went full nuts

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As a teenager I loved to read Lovecraft. It was a way to learn English as a nice side effect because it isn't my native language but that also obscured the appalling racism from me which lead to disappointment when I found out later.

[-] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

Lovecraft deserves some redemption. First of all he wasn't especially racist, just the "normal" amount for his time (take with a grain of salt please!). More importantly he significantly mellowed out in his later years primarily due to exposure to talented black writers which made him realize the error of his ways.

But yeah, I wouldn't ask him to name my void cat.

[-] DonPiano@feddit.org 7 points 1 week ago
[-] Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 5 points 1 week ago

No, he was really really racist for the time. But he did get better at the end.

[-] alternategait@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

I had heard Dr. Fu Manchu referenced places when reading as a teen so I ended up finding the books. I was jaw in the floor shocked by the casual racism when I read them.

[-] DagwoodIII@piefed.social 3 points 1 week ago

This cereal was popular in the 1960s. They even had a kids' cartoon with the little 'Chinese' boy 'So-Hi.'

Rice Crinkles cereal

https://www.mrbreakfast.com/cereal_detail.asp?id=314

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[-] FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I watched The Apprentice when I was a teenager. I seem to have blocked out my memory of how I felt about Trump back then but my aunt says I used to think he was funny. I remember the opening tricked me into believing he was a good businessman (I was a teenager and this was my first introduction to him). I wouldn't say I viewed him as a hero but I guess I liked him as a celebrity. Now he's ruined countless lives. It was the birther conspiracies that made me start to dislike him.

[-] Dingleberry@piefed.ca 8 points 1 week ago

Many already mentioned. Steven Seagal, Ultimate Warrior, Dennis Miller

[-] baller_w@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 week ago

Oh no, don’t take The Ultimate Warrior from me…

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[-] baggachipz@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago
[-] albbi@piefed.ca 12 points 1 week ago

This poor guy didn't grow up with Weird Al.

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[-] fizzle@quokk.au 6 points 1 week ago

I used to think Musk was ok.

I didn't know anything about him other than he was investing in EV's which I felt the world desperately needed, at a time when it felt like big oil was squashing the uptake.

Same, I thought he was out to try and save the world from climate change. For me the illusion shattered when he tried to kill California HSR because he would make less in cars. It was never about the environment, it was about being "cool" and then cornering the market.

[-] fizzle@quokk.au 6 points 1 week ago

Yeah for me it was the Thai kid submarine fiasco. He offered a dumb idea in a life threatening situation and when it was rejected by professional underwater cave diver rescue guy Musk accused the guy of being a pedo.

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[-] inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

Neil fuckin Gaiman.

The ~~man~~ monster went from my favorite author to a name that elicits rage and disgust.

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[-] UniversalBasicJustice@quokk.au 5 points 1 week ago

I reserve 'cunt' and 'dumb bitch' as especially strong, disrespectful expletives to call a woman.

When I say "Fuck that dumb bitch TERF cunt JK Rowling" it carries the hurt and ire of a broken childhood love of Harry Potter. The series itself was incredibly important to me and provided a world I could escape to when the real world was overwhelming. The hate and bigotry that cunt has shown breaks my heart and sullies too many childhood memories to describe.

I was deeply inspired to pursue engineering after watching the first Falcon 9 boosters land themselves. I was enamored by the idea of using my little blip in humanity's timeline to assist our expansion to another planet. I wanted to contribute to something important, something that turned many brilliant minds towards an achievement that would eventually benefit the entirety of mankind.

I even hopped on the Tesla train; I recognized the existential threat that carbon emissions bore as well as the damaging, restrictive nature of building a society that scorns public transportation and promotes individual car ownership.

I didn't worship Elon so much as admired the causes he was advancing. That admiration withered over the years but my dream of contributing to the colonization of Mars helped me push through the ten years it took to earn my four year engineering degree. As details of his derangement came out, as he acquired twitter and more overtly spread his billionaire propaganda, that dream started to fade. The fascist salutes at Trump's inauguration crushed those dreams and ground them into a dust too fine to even attempt a rebuild.

My jaded ass still wants to benefit humanity so I've set my eyes on climate science, even as the country I was born in denies the havoc and damage our relentless consumption has wrought. Not just denial, but outright derision and contempt for the future of our world. Thus I hope to take my dreams elsewhere, hoping to find a culture with a clearer view of the consequences we must face and the changes we must make to preserve our planet.

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[-] Kolanaki@pawb.social 4 points 1 week ago

Shit, like half of 'em. The other half just died, like decent folk.

[-] yesman@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

What about the anti-theist and leftist public intellectuals like Dawkins, Kraus, and Chomsky who turned out to be somewhere between anti-feminist and full-blown sex-offender? Even NDTyson has some pretty credible accusations for those who remember. Dennett seemed like the only one of the "Four Horseman" who could be considered a decent human being, but nope... he's flying the Lolita Express.

But nobody has fallen farther than Richard Dawkins. Fame did to Dawkins what the One Ring did to Smeagol.

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[-] Vanth@reddthat.com 4 points 1 week ago

More by extension. My dad was a huge Joe Paterno / Penn State football fan. He thought very highly of Paterno as a coach, and leader. I was baffled when it broke just how much he had ignored. Just so cowardly and evil, allowing that man to rape and abuse so many kids so his football team wouldn't look bad in a headline or two.

[-] fritobugger2017@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

OJ Simpson, Scott Adams, Joss Whedon, friends and family that are MAGA

[-] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 3 points 1 week ago

I was a big Bill Cosby fan, back int he 60s. I had several of his albums, and I'd take them to friends' houses to listen to them.

I started hearing crazy stuff in the 90s, and then it all turned out to be true. I was heartbroken.

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this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2026
29 points (96.8% liked)

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