Since dactyl mean finger, which can also be translated as a digit, it kinda works. 🤔

Swamp thing was what came to mind for me.

Flashing back to Red Planet.

Somebody call Tom Selleck!

They have a series on Gates too.

The answer to OPs question is that these people they admired were just as bad, just better at PR. Unless you think that social media has had some kind of positive effect in outing these newer bastards. Being young and naive may also have been a factor (which I can personally attest to since I was a fan of MS back in the 90s before I learned about them).

Except they don’t tell you that they did something different and you have to spend half an hour just figuring that out.

Maybe he had one of those ties that have musical notes on them, and got curious (and careless)…