Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)
I'm not so sure Hilton's strategy is shamelessness. It seems more like "owning" it. For example, the leak of the sex tape is the first I'd ever heard of her. I expected her to be mortified and sue and hide. But nope. She owned it, turning it into an opportunity for fame and fortune.<p>For an example of the opposite, remember the Star Wars Kid? The video of him twirling the light sabre was leaked online, and he was humiliated and sued. Another path he could have taken would be to "own" it, say "yep, that's me". I bet he could have made a lot of money off of that, and perhaps even gotten a cameo on a SW movie out of it.<p>I have a friend who underwent some major abdominal surgery for cancer. She didn't want to wear a swimsuit because she was embarrassed and ashamed of the large scars. I suggested that her scars were battle scars of her triumph over cancer, and she should be proud of them and show them off. She owned it, and told me later that it transformed her to turn those scars into a positive.<p>Similar things happen to bald men. The ones who try to hide it with wigs and comb-overs come across rather poorly. The ones who own it and flaunt it fare far better.