You could say that evil is contagious in that we have this mesmerizing mentor in Uncle Charlie who comes into your life. Every person has a seed of evil inside them, and when you come across such a mesmerizing mentor, he is able to successfully turn it into a flower of evil.
I've paid the price; I definitely have a reputation that precedes me, and there is a camp that plots my demise. But then again. . . it's funner that way.