Life After (social) Death
When your reputation is eviscerated and your ability to make exchanges in your immediate social economy is cut off, it is not hyperbole to call it a social death. Ties are cut, bonds are broken, and social resources are bankrupt. The heart of society ceases to fuel you emotional oxygen. That life is over.
Legendary therapist Irvin Yalom stated that in treatment, “sometimes I simply remind patients that sooner or later they will have to relinquish the goal of having a better past.” Like clinging to a lifeless corpse, we refuse to grieve our pre-cancelled life and wish it were something different. If you have experienced social death, then it will always be included in your story. There is no version of your life that omits your biggest mistakes and most painful falls. Stop trying to change it.
Grief and loss is difficult but we make it even more so by resisting it. Like going to battle with a wave. We think that if we keep at it we can overcome the force of the current. Forcing our grief where it won’t go creates more friction and suffering.
Instead of trying to change the past, we are served by accepting our loss and riding that wave into the afterlife. Because there is a social afterlife. It will not be exactly like that one you had before. Perhaps you don’t get to say hi to as many people in the grocery store and you have to be more cautious about your associations but there is a life after losing big.
It’s hard to gather stories of people who were successful after public disgrace, this is usually because they’ve learned to keep a low profile, lest someone tracks them down in order to re-cancel them. But it is possible and common, especially if you’re flexible with how you define success. If you were a powerful attorney or popular Youtuber who lost your primary income source due to a mistake or false accusation, you may not have your profession or your audience anymore but there are many ways to earn a living and build a life outside of what you were doing last year.
Here are a few things to consider as you attempt to rise from the grave:
Name change. Whether it’s Karla Homolka or the Lance Armstrong Foundation, sometimes your past is too damaging to have any semblance of a life with your birthname. As tempting as it might be to ditch your name though, particularly if your online presence is so drastically tainted, you shouldn’t rush into it. You would be surprised how fast the new cycle changes. Every situation is different, but I would recommend waiting 6 months to a year before you change your name unless you have a lawyer or security company telling you otherwise.
Change of scenery. The same can be said about moving. Maybe your public shaming is the perfect excuse to start a new life somewhere else. But keep in mind that with the internet, stories will follow you wherever you land so it is not a guarantee that you will have the carte blanche you hope for. Being ressurected from the social grave has more to do with people than places. If the majority of you support is at ground zero then you may need to consider facing the awkwardness of staying put. Depending on where you live you might be able to regain some of the anonymity you so deeply crave, all while staying close to your loved ones.
Earning a living. Chances are that if you were publicly shamed you probably have also experience some level of financial setback. So much of the labour market is based on reputation and you may not be able to lean on that for the next while. That is the bad news. Few companies will take a risk on you if they think you come with baggage. The good news is that we live in a knowledge economy and there are still opportunities for those who actually know how to do stuff. Hopefully that’s you. If not, then you need to dedicate your time to learning how to do stuff that other people don’t know how to do or don’t want to do. You may not regain the prestige you had in your former career but by necessity you have been forced into entrepreneurship. There are windows to clean, dog poops to pick up, and all sorts of random jobs that people don’t want to do and will pay a decent price if you’ll do it for them. As you wait for your opportunity for a conventional job it might be time to turn the side hustle into a full-time endeavour. There are freelancing websites like www.upwork.com or www.fiverr.com where you can gain experience doing random gig work, although usually the pay isn’t amazing. It might require eating a giant slice of humble pie but this is the “university degree” for cancelled people. You learn to do stuff that others don’t think of and you can eventually find a way to earn a decent living while maintaining anonymity. You used to want to be rich and famous but that didn’t turn out, now your goal is to be financially free and anonymous.
Making and keeping friends. Now that you’ve been obliterated socially you have likely come to see how valuable the few social connections that you’ve been able to maintain are. Ideally you would have realized this prior to losing status but better late than never. One of the difficulties with maintaining friends after social catastrophe, aside from the fact that many people will not want to associate with you at all, is that those who do stick by your side may not want to talk about your woes as much as you feel you need to. You run a risk of eventually burning your friends out with your sad story. You could argue that a true friend would be there for you no matter what but you’re also not in a position to be picky. Perhaps a true friend would also be able to tell you when they’ve had enough. Don’t let someone else’ struggle with sit in your struggle disqualify them as supports. While you need to be vulnerable at times, you don’t want to become the toxic heap of pain that everyone expects you to be either. Try and spend time with people who want to have an actual friendship with you. Say yes when they invite you to go do the thing that they like to do but you’re not into. The social resurrection you seek hinges entirely on your friends so treat them like you would a lead to a lucrative business deal, because in your new social economy that’s exactly what they are.
Be recovered. Fake it until you make it is shallow advice but in this instance it might be all you have for a while. As mentioned previously, not everyone deserves to see your pain and vulnerability. There are those who expect you to be a disastrous heap of goo after having barely survived your ordeal. You have the opportunity to make them look the fools when they ‘catch’ you living a fulfilling life. The hard part here is that you can’t just display to the rest of the world how happy you are, it will come off as pathetic and phoney. Instead you need to live the life a recovered person. Standup straight, look people in the eye, and seize the day in all the poetic (and preferably free) ways you can imagine. They expect you to be wallowing in your sinful sorrow but what happens when they see your stopping to smell every rose you can? Even though you’ve been cut off from many sources of status and pleasure you have not lost all of them. You can still climb mountains, swim in streams, read great novels and help those less fortunate than you are (which there are if you can look beyond your own sorry state of affairs).
The important part here is to have faith that there is indeed life after social death. You can ask Robert Downey Jr. or Martha Stewart or Dave Chappelle who have not just survived but thrived after their first downfall. Sure, you do not have a fame and wealth to get you through your strife like they did, but as an example of the possibility of redemption they show that it can be done. The best examples are living happy but relatively anonymous lives and that is exactly where you want to be.
Reputation feels real but it’s largely a mirage. Besides, now you can build a more robust reputation of resilience, faith, and integrity. You can be the one who paves the way for the rest of the sinners who will inevitably and eventually fall around you.