Malcolm Gladwell would be a serious thinker and cultural hero.
I think you forgot Tony Robbins and Bear Gryllz...
Who are the culture heroes of today?
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Re: Who are the culture heroes of today?
#22Remember The Last Dance, the documentary about Michael Jordan's last season with the Chicago Bulls? Remember that weird talk show clip where the host describes Jordan as close to a living god? Now, Michael Jordan was an awesome athlete, but I think his mythos owes a lot to the specific media landscape at the time.
That is, media was extensive enough for a person to be a truly global star, but for the most part it only went one way. The media gave you an image of Michael and, for the most part, the image was pretty close to "living god". In contrast, modern media is intensely participatory. There are vicious comment sections and viral Tweets dunking on every person. Nobody seems to stay above it for very long.
There's a famous, maybe apocryphal quote where John Updike explains Ted Williams' decision to mostly ignore fans as "gods do not answer letters". But at this point, fame seems to require answering letters. I think people need to maintain some kind of distance to be the sort of heroes described in this article, but the culture we have seems pretty opposed to this kind of distance.
Re: Who are the culture heroes of today?
#23Culture can be defined as the qualities that make one society, whether separated by space or time, notably distinct from another. With that said: * Joe Rogan: Podcasting is now a legitimate profession and long form interviews are common. * Joe Rogan: Juijitsu and MMA were previously obscure. * The former U.S. President: Never compromise, form a strong opinion without any or few facts, and never admit mistakes. We now…
The thing is that you're largely talking about people who have influenced culture, whereas the article seems to define "culture heroes" as people with name recognition across society (presumably including across ages, regions, religions, politics, etc). Not super clear but I read it as "in the US" since language barriers make it very clear that the median culture is very much on the other side of the globe.
I don't think any of those people other than the former (two) US presidents cut the mustard. They might have changed culture, but they're not "heroes" in the "icon" sense.
For cultural icons that everyone across society recognizes, for better and worse I have to imagine those ridiculous segments where they go around and interview random people to ask them who people who I think are comically well known are only to find that people don't know who like Kamala Harris is. Terrifying, but that's what I think the OP was getting at.
Who else might I add? Who would a 15 year old from Chicago recognize as well as a 73 year old in Tallahassee?
Robin Williams maybe? Literally Mickey Mouse? Payton Manning? Elon Musk?
I know I'm out of touch, but I didn't recognize the name for Joe Rogan, Sam Altman, David Goggins, or Jordan Peterson. I have no doubt they have impacted my life, I've even studied karate for over a decade and had friends training MMA and BJJ in class with me; Joe Rogan himself never came up though so while it's awesome that culture now includes MMA and BJJ, Joe Rogan himself is not a culture hero by this classification.
Re: Who are the culture heroes of today?
#24I feel like this article is missing a key point: the impact of social media on cultural "heroes." I genuinely feel like I'm talking to someone from another culture when I chat with people 10 years younger than me. Most of them are heavy into Tik Tok, Instagram, etc. Their music icons, fashion icons, acting icons, activism icons, and business icons are mostly people I have never heard about. I think this article is an…
> With the exception of Elon Musk and Bill Gates, I can't think of any "business" heroes that most people outside of the academic/tech social bubble would be familiar with.
Warren Buffett, Mark Zuckerberg, (when he was alive) Steve Jobs, and maybe Jeff Bezos are probably the only other business people of the era that most people would recognize. Now Zuckerberg would probably not be seen in a good light by most people, but Jobs would, and Buffett and (less probably) Bezos probably would by anyone with a smattering of interest in business world.
Re: Who are the culture heroes of today?
#25Culture can be defined as the qualities that make one society, whether separated by space or time, notably distinct from another. With that said: * Joe Rogan: Podcasting is now a legitimate profession and long form interviews are common. * Joe Rogan: Juijitsu and MMA were previously obscure. * The former U.S. President: Never compromise, form a strong opinion without any or few facts, and never admit mistakes. We now…
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Re: Who are the culture heroes of today?
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
if your entire definition of culture is an alt-right on ramp, then sure
Everything on that list is mainstream. If you define that as an alt-right on ramp then you’re probably disconnected from a large part of our society.
>Sam Altman and PG
you think YC is mainstream? outside of tech absolutely no one knows what it is (let alone sam altman and paul graham). it's fair to say that, outside of joe rogan and trump, the other names on this person's list are not mainstream (jordan peterson is not well known outside of a very small group of people).
Re: Who are the culture heroes of today?
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
if your entire definition of culture is an alt-right on ramp, then sure
Everything on that list is mainstream. If you define that as an alt-right on ramp then you’re probably disconnected from a large part of our society.
I have no doubt I’m disconnected from a large part of our society, but genuine question: is Jordan Peterson mainstream?
I know he’s very popular but doesn’t seem like he’s broken out of the right wing/apolitical young white male demographic, but I could be wrong.
Re: Who are the culture heroes of today?
#28Everybody will have their own list, but there won't be a huge overlap. Even on HN, which is theoretically a very homogeneous group compared to the wider world, there just isn't a monoculture anymore.
Re: Who are the culture heroes of today?
#29Re: Who are the culture heroes of today?
#30I admit to being a bit skittish about heroizing anybody who might turn out to have been a horrible misogynist or racist. Or in the business world, some tycoon who turns out to be a first rate scoundrel or ends up in prison. Maybe we can move away from needing to identify movements and culture changes with individual people.