David Copperfield (the magician)

Hulk Hogan....

Not really "heroes" but several pastors / youth leaders from when I was young got caught in sex scandals and embezzling. My childhood bully became a youth paster and got convicted of sex crimes against minors.

Back when I started getting an interest in tech back in middle school I looked up to Bill Gates

In high school I used to think highly of Elon because of all the promises he was making with Tesla, space X, etc

I think it’s safe to say those opinions aged like milk

Bill fucking Cosby. That guy was a generational idol.

Back in the '00s, he used to give speeches down at college campuses around the country that supposedly promoted ethics and social values for young men. The most famous of these, the Pound Cake Speech, was given out during the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision at an NAACP Legal Defense dinner, ffs.

He was this pinnacle of Respectibility Politics. This Model Minority. The quintessential American father figure. An intellectual. A charismatic icon. A pillar of the community.

Oops. Fuck. Oh well...

Keanu Reeves, I used to really like the guy when the matrix trilogy came out but then he said and did all these super nice things like saying "I don't want to be part of a world where kindness is perceived as weakness".

Nah just fucking with you. The dude is solid!

Not so much a hero but I admired ~~his work~~ the projects he is associated with: Elon regarding Tesla & Space X.

I had heard that he was a bit of a nightmare to work with but I just chalked that up to the usual tech CEO being a bit of an arsehole but still delivering the vision. So admired the projects but wouldn't personally work for him.

The first time I came across something that gave me the impression something was off with him was when he called one of the Thai cave divers a pedo after the diver rejected using an unproven single person extraction canister Elon proposed.

It was just so uncalled for. Then the more I read and saw stories about him my opinion of him wained further down to a spoilt nepo-baby cosplaying as a design engineer who'd do best to get out of the way of the actual engineers trying to do the work.

Now I think the world would be better off without him and I hope the talented engineers currently work for him leave to find fulfilling employment elsewhere in the space and electrification industries as soon as possible.

None of them, really. Mr. Rogers was genuinely as awesome as he seemed. As a young adult, John Von Neumann, Grace Hopper, and Claude Shannon became my heroes. None have anything particularly bad that I've seen.

There are some people whose work I admire whom I don't like, e.g. Harlan Ellison was famously an asshat. But they're not my heroes, and the work is not the creator.

All of them, and I haven't even looked. If anyone is horrible, we all are horrible. My enjoyment of something they did does not change that.

Geordi LaForge and Wile E. Coyote.

Neither have disappointed me.

Never had heroes because basically this. Almost all people in a spotlight let you down eventually. Something about being rich makes people into depraved cunts.

Maybe not Dolly Parton. She's been consistently good. Mr Roger's too. But still, not many people on the list.

Can I say Dr Oz, sort of? Seriously, many of the women in my Moms generation were huge Oprah fans, and really loved Dr Oz. While his expertise was always questionable, his advice seemed relatively harmless and wholesome. For conservative folk with no interest in following medical science, they watched listened, and learned, including some actual good advice.

Now I just can’t even answer with some of the shit those same relatives bring up

Bruce willis never steered me wrong.

Marilyn manson

A big hero of mine is/was "Weird Al" Yankovic. I feel like out of all celebrities that exist, he's the one that I probably don't have to worry about turning out to be a horrible person.