I Have No Heroes & Neither Should You

I had a discussion recently with my mother over the fact that the role models for children these days are unrealistic at best. The "heroes" of today's youth haven't accomplished much more than a music and/or acting career based on selling out to a genre (I'll explain this further in a moment and yes, almost every artist does this) and a stellar social media presence. Now, this doesn't make them horrible people and that is not the intention of this article. Celebrities, like the rest of us are human, have human motives, and also do wonderful things. 

As far as selling out to a genre, what I mean is that every artist conforms to the ideal of the fans their music or acting represents. An easy example is Taylor Swift, her transition from country singing sweetheart to New York killer queen was an intentional swap of genres executed perfectly. She no longer had her long blonde curls and soft pastel dresses that swirled about her like a dream. Instead she traded them for an edgy look, hipster themes and a new base line. There is nothing wrong with conforming to a new genre, especially when it's your job, as long as you actually want to. 

Actors do this too. Everyone knows Tom Hiddleston is a classy gent. One, because that's who he is. And two, because he's also created that theme in the way he talks, dresses, and the roles he's chosen to play. In the entertainment world you have to build an image and fit it. That's just how it is. It doesn't have to be something you're not, but it does have to be something people readily recognize. That's how you get certain parts, that's how you produce yourself. Simple marketing. 

That explanation out of the way, back to why I have no heroes. More importantly why today's kids are about to have a terrible go of it. 

My younger sister's hero is Ariana Grande. What I mean by that is, the person she wants to be, who she thinks is the greatest personality achievable, and whom she'd most like to be like is Ariana Grande. She loves all her music, her taste in style. All of it, she wants to be Ms. Grande.  

Other kids I know have similar connections to internet celebrities like Colleen Ballinger, Felix Kjellberg, and Tyler Oakley. These young people are their aspirations, their role models. And so, to imitate them they start their own channels and create videos that mimic or fit into the style of their heroes. There's nothing wrong with admiring entertainers, especially some of these youtubers who have done amazing things with charities and that sort of thing.

Here's where the problem lies: the kids admire their heroes for their fame and lifestyle. Not for who the people are. You can't admire someone for who they are if you don't actually know them. I have argued this with many people who say that youtubers (and actors/musicians for that matter) are actually more real than they've ever been. They put their whole lives on camera and want you to be part of it. Well...no.

Just as Facebook gives you the opportunity to project whatever image you want, so does youtube. Any media outlet is tampered with marketing a specific image. Everyone does it. If you think for a moment that a youtuber would persist with something out there that is a bold, anti-popular belief opinion, you are wrong.

Nash Grier, a popular viner, got so much grief after posting an anti-gay vine that he immediately apologized and took it down. He said he was "in a weird place" when he made it, which could be true. Or he could have thought it would be funny and then realized no one was going to go with it. Or, and I think this may be more plausible, is that he stated a personal opinion, against the status quo, and had to change his public image to continue making money as an entertainer.

You can't be real on the internet. Argue it any way and you'd still be wrong. Even in real life we have an image to project, online it's just easier to maintain. Play your cards right and you can fool anyone into thinking you're a sheep when you're a wolf (Poe's law fits somewhere here).

Here's the scene: millions of kids across America, whose role models are actors who consistently pretend to make money, go on to be just like them. The thing is, not everyone's going to make it as a youtube or vine celebrity. So, where does that leave us?

Marie Antoinette was Queen of France roughly between 1774 to 1792. She's an iconic figure in history and most people know at least the name. We're all familiar with the saying "Let them eat cake," that she (supposedly, no historians believe she actually said that) said. Whether she said the phrase or not, it wouldn't have been something farfetched to come from her mouth. Marie wasn't an idiot by any means, however she had no know how when it came to running a country. Neither did her husband, Louis XVI. They were raised to be beautiful. To be admired by their people for their attraction, not their diplomatic prowess.

Louis tried to usher his country into a new era with Enlightenment ideas, this didn't go over well with his court as it abolished serfdom. He also cut down on economic regulations of the government which unfortunately led to a shortage of grain in France. While he had wonderful ideas that could have worked if he'd better tested their influence on his country and built firmer connections with the factions in his circle of influence, Louis' decisions were led by sheer will and not a thorough investigation of the facts.

Marie was worse off, her mother trained her to look like a queen, not be one. Marie could not read or write well in any language, her talents were only in singing, playing the harp, and dancing. She had no forethought to extend her hand to courtiers who were against the alliance with Austria (her homeland). Marie wanted to live like a queen, not exercise the responsibility of one. She renovated buildings, some saying she plastered them with gold and jewels, and spent an extensive amount of money on luxuries and gambling all while the people of France suffered from an economic decline. All she wanted was what was best for her and her homeland.

Marie Antoinette was publically beheaded on October 16, 1793 at the Place de la Revolution in Paris, France. Her body was thrown into an unmarked grave. She was known as a selfish, self indulgent, beautiful woman. That's it.

Why bring up Marie Antoinette? We don't have kings and queens in the United States, meaning that any child today could become the future leader of our country. Any child has the potential to be a leader. But here's the problem, they're all a Marie Antoinette in the making. Their ideal of a role model is an entertainer who markets themselves with products they're paid to use. Our future leader will be a sellout actor, just like Marie. If we've learned anything from the past, we're looking forward to economic and governmental ruin of dastardly proportion. I'm not sure that's something America will come back from, at least not anything like it used to be.

These kids, eventually will have no one to blame but themselves. The fact that they care more about what's the newest, most popular video game is on them, on us. My last post was all about the fact that my generation is one of the most terrible generations yet because our primary concern is enjoying ourselves, not the benefit of the future. We're setting ourselves up for ruin because the role models we use to order our life toward are about partying and the fun things in life. The magnitude of issues we have to deal with from our predecessors alone will bury us.

We need to get serious.  

Someone once asked me to create my "last supper," who would be the twelve around my table? I thought this was odd for many reasons, but the most relatable being that it seemed they wanted me to lay out a group of people I most aspired to be like. But I don't have heroes like that.

During a discussion of sociology or philosophy (I forget), my professors had my class read an excerpt from Allan Bloom's, The Closing of the American Mind, where Bloom lamented over the fact that students no longer had role models (I spent hours combing through it top try and find where, I'll add the exact location once I've found it). His concern was that young people no longer believed in anything and were all Relativists. He worried that no one had a firm grasp on what they believed or firm morals of any sort. And that's why he believed students need role models.

My professor particularly agreed with this statement and brought it up, asking everyone in the class to name their role models. I said I had none, he took it as a the perfect example for Bloom. That wasn't my meaning though and I explained that I didn't believe in role models because I don't believe that any one human being is of a high enough quality for me to want to emulate them.

My "Last Supper" is full of people like Oscar Wilde, Christina of Sweden, and Aristotle. But the whole concept of a last supper is that I'm in control and these are my peers who I am sharing a meal with. My pursuits are directed toward the perfection of attributes such as goodness, integrity, and boldness not to be as alike to Queen Elizabeth I as possible. Sure, my goals are inevitably unattainable, but is it not more valiant to attempt to be Godlike than to settle for the lowness of humanity?

That being said, we, as a generation, do not need role models. We need a goal. There's a lot at stake in our future and if we don't have the drive and willingness to sacrifice ourselves to create the world we want to live in then we are no better than Marie Antoinette. We remain self indulgent cowards, who care more about feeling good than doing what's right. Nobody has to remember our names, but those after us will surely remember what we leave them to deal with. Who are we, entertainment junkies or heralds of a new age?