Iconic

 

Six recent updates (read, further adventures) of the iconic word, Iconic. 1. ‘The football finals are upon us and what better way to get there than on one of our iconic trams.’ Intercom announcement at Town Hall tram-stop, Collins Street. Their livery wants to tell us how very new they are and that they were made (read, assembled) in Melbourne. Football finals are always iconic. Travelling by tram is special when imbued with iconicalness. 2. ‘Microsoft is ninja-killing yet another iconic Windows app this year. Microsoft is apparently keen to cut its popular legacy Windows applications with storied histories. Following the official deprecation of WordPad, another app is now heading to the chopping block by the end of this year and will no longer be supported with updates. We’re talking about Paint 3D, the revised version of Microsoft Paint that’s been available since 2016.’ PCWorld online, 12 August 2024. “Storied histories”, of eight years or any length (it seems), are potentially iconic. Whether the apps were iconic at the time, or will be in the future, is not asked. It is enough for ‘iconic’ to act as an intensifier in the here and now, to bolster Paint 3D’s all too brief status in the “storied” silicon race. “Official deprecation” fast-tracks iconicity. 3. ‘World of the Book 2024. Explore the rare, the sacred and the iconic in this one-of-a-kind exhibition’. State Library of Victoria promotion, where iconic is different from sacred. Sacred is not the same as iconic. What is rare that is also iconic? Much? To be iconic is to be “one-of-a-kind”. 4. ‘Nicole Kidman just brought back her iconic ‘90’s red curls.’ InStyle magazine, online. Such curls remind us, we’re told, of Moulin Rouge. Is Moulin Rouge iconic? It doesn’t say. Quote: “The actor ditched her blonde in favour of the classic look … her hair in beachy waves in a long, messy lob.” Beachy, is that even a word? Hair of any length may be iconic. 5. ‘Iconic Fitzroy Corner’. For Sale sign, corner Gertrude and Brunswick Streets. No buyers for this house after several months. Before then the building was used for offices. The adjective is a selling device: follow the money with ‘iconic’. Opposite the Champion Hotel corner, famous for Saturday night brawling before being turned into a post office, then a gentrified carpet shop. Does anyone call the Champion Hotel iconic? Did anyone, ever? 6. ‘The 100 most iconic guitars of all time.’ Billboard headline. That’s a lot of iconic guitars in the one place. Should there be a cap on things iconic? After 10 or so don’t the guitars start losing their iconeletricity? How iconic is Guitar 50, say, compared with Guitar 5, for example? Slightly iconic? Moderately? Such lists have the irritating habit of starting at 100, which means minutes of scrolling with index finger to reach the actual really mostest iconic guitars. Anyway, what’s the criteria? How can they tell, iconicest? Variant spelling; iconickest.