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Who Were Your Childhood Icons?
…and who did you become instead?
As a kid, who did you aspire to be?
My media-saturated youth was filled with science fiction shows, super-hero comics, and fantasy novels. As a cis white male, the representative archetypes were as numerous as they were unrealistic.
Luckily, the person I became didn’t follow the script.
I don’t know why.
In the media slurry of toxic masculinity and systemic racism, none of them were good role models. But my path really ganged aft agley.
I wanted to be:
Spock, not Kirk.
I wanted to be logical, to have the answers, and not be swayed by emotions.
Literally, I wanted to be a Vulcan. Raised on the original series, I wanted pointy ears and practiced saying “Fascinating.” Instead, I ended up leading crews into strange new events, learning to harness emotion and grit to get things done.
I still resent that I can’t raise only one eyebrow.
Iron Man, not Captain America.
I wanted to be a genius philanthropist playboy, complete with goatee.
