r/AskReddit • u/DrCompenomics • 12h ago

Who’s the best real-life example of “you either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” and what happened?

3.8k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

2.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

184

u/GracelessOne 10h ago

Some people just love being controversial, doesn't matter for good or bad. Kanye West got famous for standing up to George Bush, now he's a Nazi.

127

u/Wolf_Mans_Got_Nards 9h ago edited 9h ago

This is what always irks me about the whole Johnny Rotten/Jimmy Saville thing. Rotten wasn't "exposing" anything. He was a professional contrarian, he just repeated a bunch of contentious runours, and got lucky that the Saville one was true.

17

u/Oilswell 5h ago

And now he’s gone right wing because that’s the opinion that makes him an outsider in the circles he’s in. He doesn’t believe anything.

18

u/oh_what_a_surprise 7h ago

I mean, there's an argument that professional contrarians are and always have been an important part of society. The tenth man and all that.

15

u/Unleashtheducks 5h ago

There is a difference between presenting a coherent argument exposing the flaws in what everyone takes for granted and just trying to be as big of an asshole as possible for attention.

7

u/unassumingdink 5h ago

When you legitimately oppose something that 90% of the people support (Afghanistan War in 2001 America, for instance), a contrarian feels like a breath of fresh air.

13

u/wex52 9h ago

A radical in search of a cause.

23

u/GracelessOne 9h ago

Sincere radicals rarely flip sides. I think this is more like being an adrenaline junkie, only instead of getting their fix skydiving, they get it through everybody being mad at them.

3

u/pyr666 7h ago

kanye west has some sort of mental illness. maybe bipolar? I'm not sure, but I see a lot in him that I recognize from when I volunteered with the homeless.

2

u/Paratwa 3h ago

Kanye didn’t get famous for that and everyone at the time thought he was a giant idiot for that.

Maybe infamous.

He was famous well before that, thus him being on that Katrina show to begin with.

0

u/SewerRanger 8h ago

Kanye West is an unmedicated bipolar patient. I think he's more tragic than "hero becoming a villain".

9

u/GracelessOne 7h ago

I mean, I get you and I mostly agree, but I don't think bipolar disorder makes you more likely to become a Nazi. That's just Kanye.

2

u/SewerRanger 3h ago

While unmedicated in a manic state, you can do all kinds of crazy things. My grandmother called child services on her own son. She would buy entire racks of clothing. She would curse and cuss us all out for being demons. I can see someone who already has some self loathing along with a brain injury (which can further incite wildly inappropriate behavior), who is looking for attention, doing something that gives them negative attention and not realizing/caring that what they're doing is batshit insane. I'm not saying it's an excuse or a pass to do that, but I find it sad more than damning.