The moment of confrontation. Simon Blint (blue shirt, center left) takes on Thomas Hawk and loses. Photo by Thomas Hawk.
There can be little doubt about the Web’s ability to promote reputations. But what about its ability to destroy?
Consider the case of Simon Blint, director of visitor relations at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art (SF MOMA). Earlier this month, Blint had a run-in with a photo-taking guest and had the guest forcably ejected from the museum. According to the account posted by the guest, Thomas Hawk, Blint was out of order and abusive. This SF MOMA press release claims otherwise.
Blint might have been acting on museum policies. But just as Hawk warned him would happen, his name has since been dragged through the virtual mud (along with the good name of SF MOMA).
It turns out that Hawk is rather well connected on the Web. Thanks to his blog, his flickr site and the help of others (notably Digg and Boing Boing), Simon Blint is now stuck with a pretty serious reputation problem. Words like “douchebag,” “pariah,” “*sshole” stand out like sore thumbs on the first results page for a Google search on “Simon Blint.”
While I’m inclined to side with Hawk in this whole affair, I feel somewhat sorry for Blint. Even if he overreacted in the heat of the moment and now regrets how he handled the situation, it’s too late. Unless he saves a drowning baby or donates millions to charity — anything that will replace the current invective with praise — his name is now linked, via powerful search engine algorithms, to some pretty scathing descriptions.
Jeremiah Owyang, in his post The Long Term Impacts of Online Critics on Personal Brands (a great analysis, btw), points out that when you consider how 77% of recruiters use online search to dig up background information on candidates, and how 35% of them eliminate candidates based on what they find, it’s fair to say that Blint could have employability issues for some time.
The smearing is so thorough that I’m inclined to use “blint” as a verb to describe what happens when one’s online reputation is effectively scuttled by the collective efforts of members of the socialweb. As in, “Dude, you’ve been totally blinted!”
Just recently, I, too had a hand in “blinting” someone. If you recall, I blogged about a frightening experience with a desert guide in Peru. Within two weeks of the experience, a search on this guide’s name began to turn up some disturbing items, most notably a photo I had posted on flickr of the guide passed out and partially disrobed, which was coming up twice on the first results page.
For the guide, who was just beginning to enjoy a flood of business from a favorable writeup in the New York times, this came as a serious blow. A few days ago, I received both email and voicemail from the guide, asking me to stop.
I’ve since removed that incriminating photo, as I quickly realized that I had no right to humiliate the man. The blog post will persist, however. It currently shows up on page 2 of the Google search results and could easily climb higher. I hope that it will serve, not as punishment or revenge, but as a warning to other tourists of the risks of booking with this guide.
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