Wealth, Fame, and Authenticity

Minor rant I absolutely loathe how wealth and fame can blind people on determining whether someone is authentic or not. There are countless examples now of people being exposed for their fraud. People who I have never respected because I saw through their inauthentic portrayals of who they claim to be due to their actions recorded publicly on full display and not weighing at all whether they are wealthy or not. Someone's actions and commitment to be true to their words should determine integrity, not how many millions of followers or dollars they have. Take this example: A lone person who can hardly string together an eloquent sentence that claims to have the domain collective expertise of several fields that people can only master over a lifetime. He promises much but fails to deliver anything. He has time to appear on countless interview and television skits. Deemed authentic by the masses due to the size of his bank account, even though he was exposed as a fraud continuously for more than a decade. Or this one: A man claims he has converted to Islam. From that moment up till years later he constantly posts on social media with Tweets and videos that show the contrary. A constant stream of videos and behavior that would require a level of censorship that would be embarrassing for a normal person to be caught viewing in public. To preface what I will write below with my usage of red flags is that they are not blanket statements to immediately negate someone's authenticity, rather it is a means to be more critical and cautionary in judging someone. Fame is a huge red flag for me, especially from those who are religious, and especially from those who are Muslims. I've seen over and over again religious leaders being exposed for not practicing what they preach yet still maintain an enormous loyal audience even though the evidence of their misdeeds, misconduct, or even misguidance is on full display to review. Extreme charisma is also a huge red flag for me and I've learned this the hard way. In role playing video games you can boost this stat and you're able to just talk your way into getting whatever you want even if you're not giving something of equal value. Unfortunately the same holds true for real life. You're doing the person a favor because you like them, yet once they're done with you, no favors have been returned and you gradually come to the realization that you've been swindled and incurred a net loss. Charisma will exponentially multiply someone's fame and a person who does not fear Allah will definitely wield their charm to vampirically suck time and value out of their victims. For the longest time I could never comprehend the hadith about Dajjal will come and countless people will follow him. Muslims will follow him despite having a complete description to make it impossible to mistake him for anyone else, yet somehow people speculate that Dajjal is not a real person but an idealogy or technology. Many people today fall for people far less than impressive than Dajjal who will have all the fame, all the wealth, and all the miracles. Judge someone by their actions and how well they commit to their word, not their carefully crafted image. Cultivate your skepticism skills now. We're living in an age of propaganda, scams, and lies. This rampant blind trust in people who have violated who they claim to be deserve no one's attention and is extremely harmful.