I think one of the most sobering parts of Becoming An Adult is coming to the unfortunate realisation that some people are just Bad People — and that, more often than not, they will get away with being Bad People, through some combination of money, power, influence and/or privilege.
I'm not speaking about anyone specific here (though heaven knows I have a depressingly large number of people in mind) but more just sort of making a general observation, particularly after seeing People Make Games' stellar piece of (video-based) journalism about Bobby Kotick floating across my feed today. It's a frustrating thing to realise, particularly when you were brought up to be a Good Person, and you've made significant efforts throughout your life to, as well as you are able, be that Good Person.
I've made mistakes along the way. We all have. My parents made mistakes at times when they were bringing me up, too, but I don't hold those against them. They were going through their own learning process at the same time I was learning how to function in society. I was learning how to be a Good Person; they were learning how to bring up a Good Person. (Although, granted, they had already done it once with my brother, ten years my senior.)
When you've spent your life making a specific effort to try and be a Good Person, though, including acknowledging the times when you could have done better, and reflecting on — sometimes agonising over — how you can avoid making the same mistakes in the future, it is frustrating, galling, infuriating to see the way some indisputably Bad People go through their lives. without a fucking care in the world about how they treat others or even how others see them, because the only thing that matters to them is themselves.
Being a Bad Person can take many forms, some of them more obvious than others. Some Bad People flout the laws of society, some ignore the demands of common decency, some simply cast the rules of politeness and etiquette aside. Some are more insidious; worming their way into a group and infecting it from the inside with their rancid attitudes and opinions. Some are up-front with their bigotry and lack of respect for people they see, for one reason or another, as "beneath" them. Others still are utterly deluded, believing that they have somehow done society a net good with what can laughably be called their "work", when in fact all they have done is filled their own pockets at the expense of others, often contributing a net negative to society and culture in the process.
The very worst Bad People, of course, do all of these things, and more besides. These people, unfortunately, exist; I have had the misfortune of encountering multiple of them in my lifetime. And perhaps most frustratingly of all, they keep getting away with it, because for one reason or another, no-one will confront them. No-one will stand up to them. No-one will give them a much-deserved punch in the face and tell them to stop being such an insufferable dickhead. Because it seems the one thing that Bad People are generally pretty good at is becoming powerful, influential, untouchable.
These people will never see consequences for their actions, behaviour and attitudes because everyone is too afraid of them. It sucks that this is the way the world works, and that these dickheads can just continue getting away with all the shitty things they do. But, unfortunately, that is the reality of life in 2026, and one of my least favourite parts of "growing up" over the years has been having to come to terms with that.
It sometimes makes me wonder why I've bothered. But at least I can look back on my own existence and reflect that, on the whole, I've done my very best to not ruin other people's experiences of living in this world we share, and that I am, overall, satisfied that I fall on the "good" side of the alignment chart. I doubt any of the people I have in my head right now do much in the way of introspection. If they did, I wonder if they could truly look upon what they find and say that they're completely and honestly happy with it?
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