This gets to an interesting distinction many of us make these days: we have a personal world and a work world, and the two are very different. Historically, this hasn’t been the case. Heck, your name advertised your work. You were your work. You never had any time off.
The industrial revolution changed that. People no longer worked for themselves, but for someone else. So while they were on the clock, they were being paid for their time. It was no longer their own time. And when not on the clock, it was their own time and it was different time.
It’s fairly easy to make this distinction for hourly workers doing non-professional work. However, the more that analytical thought is involved, and the more you are tied to the company in terms of importance, the more you become your work. Usually the people at the top really have no difference between work and private life.
With celebrities, they are the company. They are selling themselves. They are always at work. They have no time off. That’s why advertisers put “morals” clauses in their contracts. If Tiger Woods fucks up, he loses endorsements—or they can stop using him if they choose to. Because the person is their work, than anything they do reflects on the people who pay them to use their name.
Do I stop watching people who have done unfortunate things? I guess I don’t really have to think about it. OJ Simpson pretty much disappeared after what he did. How much have we seen from Chris Brown since he beat Rihanna? Pete Rose? Mark McGuire?
If the pattern holds true, we’ll probably be seeing less of Tiger Woods for a while. They will have to wait until some time has passed, or he’ll have to make a full explanation and confession before people are willing to attribute any credibility to him.
So, me personally, I don’t really have to withdraw support. It’s done for me. But if I did have a choice—depending on what I thought of their miscreance, I’d kind of put them on the back shelf, or never let them in the door. I don’t really want to support people who make a living off bad behavior.
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