I was thinking about those outfits celebrities wear that mess with flash photography equipment, and I was watching a dude on TV just now whose shirt pattern was going apeshit because of the camera, and I wondered if there could ever be a pattern or material that, when filmed, caused the camera irreversible damage. And if that were physically possible, I wondered if intentionally showing up to camera-heavy events wearing said shirt would constitute a crime on my part.
It’s just a shirt after all. It’s not like I’m grabbing a camera and smashing it on the ground. But at the same time, I know it will have that effect, so I’m accountable. But it’s not like my shirt is emitting damaging laser beams or anything, it’s entirely passive.
Also, is there anything like this scenario in real life/law?
There are things that damage a camera when you point at them, but they aren’t passive. Things like x-ray sources could do that. Also the sun.
So no, even if you reflected 100% of the light from the flash back into the lens, there’s just not enough of it to do any damage.
If you were somehow able to focus all of it on one single pixel on the sensor, you might be able to damage that pixel, but that would require a large piece of optical equipment basically on top of the camera.