The Hunger Games

Elites, celebrities, royalty, and other lies we've been sold.

image by Jared Subia from Unsplash.com

Vogue magazine was first published on December 17, 1892.

And we can’t deny it has become the biggest fashion magazine in the world. It has always kept up with the times, even starting trends and influencing society.

That’s what the first covers looked like. Maybe they seem beautiful to me because they’re vintage. They come from a time I don’t know, and they were hand-drawn and had style and flourish and quality.

Then we move forward to the 20’s, 40’s, and 60’s era of the magazine.

The covers continue to have so much style and art. It’s a whole art piece on the cover of a magazine in my opinion. Art accessible to everyone and beautifying the town as you walk past a newsstand. Remember those? People younger than my generation will have no idea what I’m talking about.

And then Anna Wintour enters the scene.

She became editor-in-chief of Vogue in 1988. She’s the one who had the idea to start putting celebrities on the covers.

And of course sales blow up. The magazine gets revitalized, sales are up because of recognition.

Hey, I’ve seen that actress in that movie, and then she was on that talk show, and I saw her face on the cover of a magazine on my way to work, and now she’s in my living room because I bought the magazine. We’re practically best friends at this point.

If the title wasn’t on the cover, we wouldn’t be able to tell these magazines apart.

I can’t help but feel that something has been simultaneously stolen from us and shoved down our throats.

Art, style, beauty, essence seems to have been swapped by faces of celebrities I’m suddenly supposed to care about.

Now, I find myself hating on Kate Moss for being too skinny, and I’m hating on Lena Dunham for being too fat. And what is Kate Blanchett doing? I’m baking cookies, is she doing the same thing? I’m taking out the garbage, is Johnny Depp doing it too?Wow, celebrities, they’re just like us.

But what is their political statement? What do they believe in? Because if they don’t believe in what I believe then they shall be cancelled, or should I change my mind? Because I love that celebrity, so if I love them and want to be like them then maybe I should change my mind to believe as they believe. After all, they made all this money so they must know something I don’t.

And if they believe the same as I do then I get to worship them because, well, they’re just amazing, and we vibe, and we’re practically best friends.

The Hunger Games

One thing that amazes me is how people at large seem to jizz over the Met Gala to see what outrageous things the celebrities will be wearing.

Are we not watching the Hunger Games? These are the same people from The Capital, and we are the ones on district 12 wanting to become them, willing to die for a piece of the pie.

Are we seriously giving them this much power and attention?

I remember a guy I met who had the Louis Vuitton LV logo tattooed on his arm.

Listen, I have nothing against people having aspirations. You want to make enough money that you can afford Louis Vuitton? Please, go for your dreams and make it happen. You made the money, you spend it however you want.

What fascinates, and disgusts me, is the visceral reaction to have a logo permanently branded onto your skin. Well now you’re cattle, branded by your owner who doesn’t even know you exist.

We don’t know ourselves so deeply that we will cling to anything that remotely resembles some kind of personality and belonging.

It seems to me that the world at large has been robbed of personality and authenticity.

Looking at modern architecture around the world, we don’t know anymore if we’re looking at Hong Kong, or Paris, or New York. Just steel and glass structures with no magic behind it.

I’m being cynical, I know. Here at IcaroTarot HQ we love a woman in power. We can’t deny the power and influence Anna Wintour has had in the fashion industry and beyond.

We’re saw the rise of celebrities, and now the rise of influencers who are showing up on red carpets and celebrity events.

But I’m cynical and proud because I’m much more interested in finding myself than being told what I should be.

We’re seeing that space bullshit fiasco. I can’t begin to tell you how irate that whole thing makes me, and I refuse to drink the kool-aid of “it was done for female empowerment”, while actual female astronauts are losing their jobs.

Please *eyeroll, billionaires playing at astronauts like children, while actual children starve and die.

We have been sold the idea of “the elite” for far too long, and that being part of “the elite” is something to aspire to.

A coworker of mine mentioned, unsolicited, that his name comes from royalty. I couldn’t help but just stare at him blank-eyed for a while.

So you mean to tell me that you’re proud that you descend from a line of oppressors who “conquered” (had soldiers and slaves who did all the actual pillaging and killing) other peoples and invented royalty, just simply declared themselves kings and queens of a land that didn’t belong to them, simply because they stole all the money in the land and kept it for themselves. You’re proud of that? Alright then, pop off, sis. But just so you know you live paycheck to paycheck now, so not sure how well that whole “descended from royalty” thing is working out for you.

To bring this long winded rant to a conclusion. I’d rather be influenced by people who have something to say. Who have an opinion, who are on the journey of finding themselves. I’d rather be influenced by people who have lived, and from that life have built a philosophy, a kind of wisdom that is their own.

And to have a drop of that wisdom is much more valuable than the price of a $150,000 dress that a celebrity, who could actually afford it, didn’t have to pay for, while the sucker at home forks over the money they worked hard for, just so they could feel like they belong, and to numb the pain of being that much further from their inner essence.

I’d rather be influenced by someone’s mind and story, than a stranger’s looks and money.

With much love and death to the celebrity archetype,

Icaro.