Kill Your Heroes and Fly

You may have heard the saying “don’t peek behind the curtain” once or twice in your life. In case you haven’t, it essentially means if you have an idol or a celebrity that you look up to, don’t try to find out about their personal life or you might find yourself ruining the image of your idol for yourself. In the song “Kill Your Heros” by Awolnation, they push a message that shares some similarities with the aforementioned saying. The only difference is that Awolnation says to kill your idols and move on with your life while you can, because we all die at some point right?

I find that now more than ever in the world do we have a culture problem. Awolnation’s song actually shares a lot in common with the currently popular “cancel culture” that is so often found in our society. The term cancel culture is used to describe the way of thinking where something that no longer aligns with the societal majority, is then “canceled” typically by means of boycotting. This is the culture problem we have nowadays. Though the intent behind it is to inspire change, everyone is scared to put their foot out of line, out of fear of being called a slur or getting canceled.

Awolnation says to simply kill your heroes (metaphorically of course) and you never have to worry about them being “cancelled” or worry about liking them. An example for myself would be the Criminal/Comedian Bill Cosby. I grew up in the early 2000’s listening to him on my parent’s CD player. And in all honesty, he was hilarious. Nothing about the way the man spoke, walked or dressed indicated who he was or what terrible things he had done. The point is, he made me laugh a lot as a child, and I looked up to him.

Once I had heard that he had been accused of raping multiple women, I was shocked and sort of heartbroken in a way. I wanted it to not be true and for a while, I even defended his name because of what he meant to me as a child. I was in my early teen years and didn’t understand much how the world works. Not that I do now, but I feel as though I have a much more in-depth understanding as to what life and living is. Anyway, when Cosby was finally found guilty, it was a 20/20 hindsight moment for me.

I realized that I should have not looked up to him as an Idol as a child because of the terrible things he would do later on in his life. Then we see band members, singers, actors, politicians, influencers and companies being cancelled every other day for something they have done. Another example for me would be the band Hedley, whose lead singer was accused of grooming a minor and pleaded guilty. I also liked the band Hedley as a kid so this one stung a bit too.

If I had taken Awolnation’s advice and focused on myself and more realistic inspirations, then perhaps the ensuing anger and sadness that followed each conviction of an inspiration would have been less felt. Either way, the message behind the song is a sound one, and one that perhaps we should engrain into the minds of those who come after us.

Enough with the philosophy talk though, the song is absolutely sick. It’s a song that makes you wanna dance and sing once you know the words. and again, the message behind it is some decent advice. If all your heroes are dead to you, then they can’t die again if they ruin their image on their own. Now that’s not to say don’t look up to anyone or kill anyone who you do look up to. It’s to say that we need to have realistic expectations and role models for ourselves in order to live happily. I can’t live completely happy if I am always comparing myself to Oprah now can I?

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Facebook: Joshua Gwozdz

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Images Courtesy of Red Bull Records and Deviantart.com

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