Problems with the article Apparently this is a very loose term used to distinguish people who have acquired some kind of long term fame or notoriety associated with popular culture Hendrix The Beatles Elvis Sinatra Crosby Jolson and so on might be described as pop icons because they are strongly associated with and in some ways personify the zeitgeist or an era in popular culture This includes film and other popular art forms and sport De Niro Monroe Bogart Muhammad Ali Pel It often includes people who died relatively young Morrison Hendrix James Dean So far so good Then there are people whose work wasn t primarily in or related to popular culture but whose image has been co opted as a pop icon Einstein Well okay Now looking at the article we see a section called Notable pop icons comprising presently some forty names More than half of those names are sourced from a single news story based on a press release produced by a single media organisation in November 2003 A further seven of them are base on a similar news story from a different media organisation in 2005 The criterion for the list of 100 members given in the first news story it turns out is a viewer s poll by a single cable television channel VH1 from a shortlist drawn up by A panel of celebrities and experts including presenter June Sarpong newsreader Krishnan Guru Murthy and GQ editor Dylan Jones Presumably the experts on the panel asked to remain anonymous Further examination of that single source also demonstrates that there are unexplained omissions from our list If we assume for the moment that membership of the VH1 list which is biased towards the tastes and cultural memory of the British viewership of that channel is a sign of pop icon status where is Princess Diana on our list She s number 5 on the VH1 list but completely absent from ours Similarly The Simpsons VH1 number 6 and Robbie Williams VH1 number 9 are omitted from our list Looking in the opposite direction Aerosmith is included in our list because MTV featured the band in a program called MTV icons but is nowhere to be seen in the VH1 100 not surprising as the band while not unknown in VH1 s target market isn t exactly a household name And while VH1 lists first man on the moon Neil Armstrong at 76 his trumpet playing namesake Louis Armstrong selected as one of 100 Icons of the Century by Variety is nowhere to be seen on VH1 s chart There are also problems with the membership criteria of the sources I ve already mentioned the UK bias of the VH1 list which goes some way to explain the presence of Beckham and Robbie Williams both household names in the UK but not so well known elsewhere The Variety list for instance sought to represent every side of show business so relatively obscure figures such as Arthur Freed who wrote the lyrics for Singin in the Rain and produced many hit films are listed as Icons of the Century Clearly the people on the list are there because they re iconic in some sense but not in the sense implied by this article Another thing that isn t addressed is the requirement of longevity Can we include Britney Spears who a mere decade ago was an unknown with a recording contract and an audacious concept for a pop video for her debut single Britney Spears career has hit an air pocket and there s no way of knowing whether her image will recover in the public mind Perhaps it s premature to describe this relative newcomer as a pop icon