Icons be Bygones
Poodle Skirts. The Apple Mac symbol. Marilyn Monroe. What do these three things have in common? They’re all icons of course! Icons seem to come in all sorts of forms these days. You have your computer generated icons, which we also came to acknowledge as “Emoticons”. You have symbols and relics representative of a time in history—hence the poodle skirt. Then you also have iconic people. This requires a significant amount of status and representation to achieve. But you’re catching my drift…an “icon” can be a whole slew of things.
This got me to wondering…what exactly IS an icon? It seems that now-a-days, anyone with a Macbook and some extra time on their hands can make themselves into an instant imagery icon by playing around with photo booth. So what differentiates the true icons from the phonies?
I stumbled upon a few different definitions for “icon”. These are some of my favourites:
Icon noun \ī-kän\: An object of uncritical devotion.
This is true isn’t it? Think about your own favourite icon. Your vision of them is untainted and undisturbed. Icons seem to reach a point of invincibility against the eye of their beholders. For example, no matter what you tell me about Audrey Hepburn, it will only strengthen my adoration for her.
Friend: “But…Audrey Hepburn was a crack head.”
Me: “Oh…that’s SOOO Audrey!”
Icon noun [ahy-kon] a representation of some sacred personage, as Christ or a saint or angel, painted usually on a wood surface and venerated itself as sacred.
Fair enough. Jesus Christ is just about the ultimate icon. Slap his face on the front of ANYTHING and you’ve created an air of instant sanctification. That’s some real icon status right there. Nice work Jesus.
Lastly, I found a critique on the overuse of the word “icon” in the Liverpool Daily. Along with “amazing”, the words have sickening usage rates that have weakened their meanings. The Liverpool Daily determined that as soon as “Spongebob Squarepants” had been dubbed an icon, they lost all hope and respect for the word.
Needless to say, icons are fun. They are images holding a strong meaning that anyone can identify with. So rather than try to distinguish the good from the bad, I’ll just let icons be icons, and bygones be bygones.