Is reputation fragile?

[Sonic Shimmer 4,137]

Yeah, especially these days. Social media mobs wait for people to make one ill advised comment and then do everything they can to drag their name through their mud.

[Dreambiscuit 11,040]

Reputation is only fragile if those perceiving it are malleable and incapable of making their own discernments. A person’s reputation is just word of mouth, usually spread by people who don’t have or want the full story, and have no interest in pursuing it. The value of a human being should be based on personality, how they’re evaluated by qualified, intuitive minds, and confirmed facts. But nowadays, reputation means very little when it’s used by dishonest people as an underhanded weapon to discredit quality human beings.  

[ZiggWheelsManning 13,046]

The truth is stated @Dreambiscuit  Reputation is not an immortal being.  

[EpicEnergy 23,244]

Most certainly, because one wrong move and you could find the reputation you've built up for years has crumbled into nothingness!

[Raskolnikov 1,596]

Depends on the community and what act(s) 'smeared' your reputation. Some groups are just needlessly punitive and unforgiving, others are wise to shun someone for disgraceful acts - and it depends on the time passed, too. If it's something serious I would wait a gooooood long while before trying to re-engage with people who got the bad impression about you as they will need to recalibrate and process their emotions regarding whatever it is that ruined your reputation for them.

And sometimes you really fucked up and you may just have to move on, and that's only fair to those people if trust was broken irreparably. It doesn't mean you're forever unforgivable, I don't think that's true for even the worst people you can think of, but it's best to move on from harmed parties.

tl;dr depends on the community and the perceived offences. Some are more lenient than others.

[Iforgotmybrain 6,855]

I guess it depends. I think with individuals or small groups it is. But in the bigger picture, general reputation doesn’t matter. It’s never been easier to grift your way into seeming reputable, or to just find a group of people who don't care about what ruined your reputation. Let’s assume you’re a YouTuber and you muck up somehow, you plagiarize a video or two or fifty. You have a decent following, say 100k subscribers. You can just turn face and grift your way to some semblance of a reputation with a different crowd or group of people. Talk about how people are out to get you for whatever reason, take your pick from whatever, really ham it up, get a whole new audience. Your reputation with the people that used to watch is tanked, but who cares about that, you have a whole new audience that couldn’t give a shit about how many videos you plagiarize.

[ExplosionMare 20,943]

I think you can have multiple reputations but for the most part, they are unchanging. 

[Snoopy Fan 7,514]

I agree with @Dreambiscuit and @ZiggWheelsManning on this.

[Clawdeen 19,759]

Whoops I just dropped and broke mine

[ExplosionMare 20,943]

Absolutely, at least with the general public. People who are loyal and true to you will generally think of you the same way regardless unless you really did do something really bad.

[Avery 177]

I don’t care for high reputation from people but my own reputation. I lived for respect and dignity and the people who will try to trash it, you’re wasting time with a brick wall. Still standing. Still here unmoved.

Edited July 3 by Avvery