Thats why I found the article so interesting. I was literally thinking about this yesterday: how your story shapes who you are. It isn't particularly profound, but it is interesting how your perception is shaped by how you present yourself, what is on the internet about you, your story and crucially, who vouches for you.

Then I got to the end of the article and saw all of those other articles with other people with "reputation issues". It was so meta. Even having this story hit the top of Hacker News might have been calculated.