reputational laundering

Reputational laundering - the act of appearing to do good publicly in order to offset a negative image. A technique usually employed by individuals or corporations who have made their money in a morally questionable fashion and who wish to appear to have a moral conscience.

Reputational laundering often comes in the form of Corporate Social Responsibility, where a relatively trivial sum of profits are donated by the corporation to fund socially oriented activities in order to suggest that the corporation is socially responsible.

An example, often sited, would be major oil companies giving charitable funds to communities in the Nigeria Delta whose original livelihoods they were implicit in destroying through the extraction of crude oil.

However the practice of reputational laundering is by no means exclusive to corporations. Many morally bankrupt individuals donate money to charity in order that they are seen to care about social or environmental issues. As an added benefit to their undeservedly improved public image they also enjoy significant tax breaks on their donations.

Given that it has just paid record fines for insider trading, PJ Gorman’s effort to support a youth programme in the inner city is little more than reputational laundering.

by katrinmacmillan May 11, 2016

reputation

Character as seen or judged by others - can apply to an individual or an organization.

"With enough courage, you can do without a reputation."

-- Rhett Butler, Gone with the Wind

by Atlanta's Burning March 1, 2011

Reputational laundering

When Betsy DeVos, Mick Mulvaney, and Elaine Chao say they are leaving the Trump Administration because they have principles, but we all know it’s less than two weeks before they would be out of their jobs anyway and they just want to save their social standing and careers in the future. Plus, they have no principles or integrity.

These reputational laundering attempts coming out in the final hours of the Trump White House are fooling no one.

by 45 exits the building January 9, 2021

flawless reputation

Kavanaugh's Reputation
When no amount of background checks can find any amount of dirt on you. When you've lived a good life and can defend every single decision you made. When every person who interacted with you has only good things to say about you.

- I wish I had reputation as flawless as Kavanaugh's
- Yeah, I know, if FBI went 36 years into your past they would've surely find some missteps.
- I know. Only an honourable man with flawless reputation, like Kavanaugh, can get on a Supreme Court.

by _______________9 October 8, 2018

reputation rehab

The expression used to describe the calculated and cynical attempt to control the public perception of a misbehaving celebrity by gratuitously sending them to a rehab center for the PR value alone.

(aka “rephab”)

“(insert celeb) just got caught cheating/drunk driving/making un-PC statements… better get them into reputation rehab!”

Tiger Woods, Lindsay Lohan, Jesse James, Charlie Sheen, Britney Spears

by daisydoesit July 9, 2010

reputation

taylor swift's 6th studio album
perhaps one of the most, if not THE most, iconic and powerful comebacks of all time.
the lead single, look what you made me do, has one of the greatest music videos in music video history.
reputation, despite its cultural impact and status, did NOT get nominated for any Grammys.
reputation contains a lot of gay subtext.

taylor herself confirmed this when during the Reputation Stadium Tour show in chicago, she gave a pride speech about coming out while wearing a rainbow dress. she finished the speech and said "its all just really....delicate".

delicate is track 5 on reputation and the song is very applicable to the queer experience. it does not use gender specific pronouns and is widely regarded as a gay anthem.

in the music video for delicate, the last scene features taylor walking into a bar and no one notices her. she looks around for someone and looks disappointed. then all of a sudden everyone at the bar turns around and looks at her. the camera goes back onto taylor and she seems to make eye contact with the 5th person along the bar, a woman. she smiles. the end.
wait...im not going to give an entire explanation as to why reputation is gay on urban dictionary, but the evidence is very...evident so please do some searching and its quite startling if you care.

THE END.

REPUTATION DESERVED AOTY
REPUTATION 2ND BIGGEST SELLING FEMALE US TOUR OF ALL TIME

REPUTATION SKIPLESS ALBUM

REPUTATION GAY
TAYLOR SWIFT GAY
THANK YOU

"reputation man...that shit is GAY"
"so true !! she did not write the line'wear you like a necklace' for people to call it straight"

"reputation is the most powerful comeback of all time, argue with the wall.....who else gets cancelled by the whole world, gets forced into hiding, gets hated on by the media and the general public, has a very influential group of people actively attacking them, THEN RELEASES AN ALBUM THAT GOES ON TO HAVE A $220 MILLION GROSSING TOUR?? NO ONE. APART FROM TAYLOR FUCKING SWIFT, THATS WHO !! "
"so true bestie"

by shawtygotthafatty May 24, 2021

Taleb'ed his own reputation

Destroying your own reputation completely and irreversibly in a few quick steps. Usually refers to someone's great reputation that was built over a very long time and which was utterly destroyed in a very short time by their own unexpectedly ridiculous actions, like the previously-respected famous author Nicholas Nassim Taleb did to his own reputation after many consecutive aggressive rants on social media that many saw as complete mental break-downs and as attacks to his own ideas, books, friends, colleagues and followers. This is one of the quickest known "from Hero to Zero" in the modern world.

He was building his reputation for 20 years but he Taleb'ed his own reputation in 20 minutes

by Ultra-Fragile May 29, 2021