A bad reputation is good? Not exactly. This article suggests that a bad reputation is more likely to get you “noticed”, but that does not mean you get noticed in a good way. It’s intuitively true, too, think of Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, whose face can you picture? They’re both immensely popular golfers, but Tiger is now famous for extracurricular activities outside of golf.

Having a bad reputation may not be desirable, but it does make you more likely to be seen — literally. A new study finds that, all other things being equal, people are more likely to pay attention to faces that have been associated with negative gossip than those with neutral or positive associations.

I assure you, the same thing applies to names and negativity. People remember when they read something negative about a CEO, but they forget all about the CEO who donates a million dollars to this or that charity. The article, cited above and linked here,  is well worth reading, both for online reputation management reasons and others.