The Most Influential People That Never Lived

It’s
hard to make an impact on this world. You live and try to make the
most of it, hopefully excelling in some way or another. And then
maybe, at the end of the road, people will remember you as someone
that changed the world – either for better or for worse.

Imagine
how hard it is to have this kind of impact on the world if you’re
never even alive! Well, these “people” managed to do that exact
thing.

Barbie

Despite
Barbie not being an actual person, she has shaped society’s image
of girls and how girls should behave for decades. Heck, even her
impossible figure has set the tone for what a girl’s body should
look like.

Santa
Claus

I
mean, let’s be honest, Christmas isn’t really about Jesus being
born anymore, is it? It’s about a fat, bearded man climbing through
your chimney to give you presents if you’ve been nice. And if you
haven’t been nice or don’t own a house with a chimney, you’re
pretty much screwed.

Rosie
The Riveter

Women
weren’t allowed in the army, but that didn’t mean that women
couldn’t fight the war! Rosie gave American women that small push
they needed to take up jobs in the factories to keep the economy
going while their men were off to war.

Big
Brother

Despite
there not being an actual Big Brother that we know of, Big Brother is
the symbol of a totalitarian government where your every move is
being watched and anyone that goes against the government does so at
the risk of their own life. The rise of AI and computer technology
has made the fear of Big Brother all that more relevant now.

Romeo
And Juliet

They
didn’t actually exist, but their story did inspire millions of
women across the world into thinking they need to wait for the
perfect man that’s willing to give his life for them. Sadly, those
same women usually grow up realizing that the perfect man doesn’t
exist. You can swap the genders around in this story, since Romeo and
Juliet pretty much screws it up for everyone.

The
Marlboro Man

Well,
the man in the ad did exist, but there was no such thing as a
“Marlboro Man”. This ad managed to turn smoking, which was a
feminine thing at the time, into one of the most manly things on the
planet – even now.

Robin
Hood

An argument could be made that Robin Hood was based on someone that actually lived in about the same area at about the same time that did about the same things, but the Robin Hood we all know right now is a lot less … barbaric than the real version.