What happened to icons?
Where did the icons go?
What happened to star power?
I can’t even name one celebrity who is an icon today. Olivia Rodrigo seems too much like a lost teenager, and Taylor Swift presents like a delusional middle aged cat lady. Male celebrities? Tom Holland seems weirdly performative in an unintentional way and far from iconic. I’m having a hard time thinking of any other largely relevant male celebrity. Jacob Elordi? He seems like a paper figurine who happened to become tall and handsome.
We live in a sexless, iconless, and powerless western world. So what can we do about? How can we refine ourselves to become iconic, and what can we learn from the icons of the past.
Some Icons
I’m terribly unread, so I’m just going off my own biases as to who I believe our icons are.
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were icons. Gates the nerdier sure, but both self assertive and ambitious in the new world of modern personal computing. Check out this iconic interview with the both of them. The two were unapologetically passionate about complex ideas, meanwhile both spearheading their respective companies. Two leaders with hundreds of thousands of people working behind them. Iconic.
I think that rivalry could be a cornerstone of being an icon. When you give yourself a large enemy, and then you stand confidently against them, that is iconic. I’m writing here in an attempt to figure out what exactly defines an icon.
Tom Ford is an icon. He has perfected marketing, image, and he isn’t afraid to take risks. He completely transformed Gucci from bankrupt fast fashion company to fashion superpower in the early 2000s. He then left Gucci to start his own Tom Ford brand, expressing himself fully and eventually selling his brand for $2.8 billion dollars. Power, class, complete control of image, and I’m not sure I ever have heard Ford say “I’m sorry” for anyone who disagreed with his lifestyle or ideology. Great example of tone control and image awareness, probably one of the best.
Sasha Gray, or Grey? An original adult content actress. She stands out because I think I have seen only one of her videos, hardly remember, but she was so iconic in the online landscape that I’ve seen her name everywhere. The modern adult content actress has lost her star power it seems: what used to be a daring and jaw dropping act has turned into the exploitation of a vulnerable 18 year old with a missing father complex. Adult content is inherently exploitative sure, but the early days seemed to have a rawness that we don’t see much of nowadays (even in rougher categories). Not to mention the fact that taking your clothes off on camera has become rampant, and it has lost it’s edge. I see Sasha as an icon because she took risks in a newly developing internet, and that decisiveness and risk taking resembles the spark of an icon.
Just a couple of people for now, this post hopes to be more of the icons I see and how we are lacking of them currently.
Can We All Become Icons?
I think we all have the ability to become icons.
The anatomy of the icon seems to be:
- unapologetic for personal ideas or pursuits
- self image awareness (personal image or business image)
- tonality aware
- passionate
- unique
- confident
- thoughtful
- presentation (of both ideas and self, similar to image)
- honesty (icons don’t front, they are)
This is just a start, and I may create some type of personal guide for the pursuit of becoming an icon. Speaking well, thinking well, and living passionately.