attributed
Madonna a catalyst role for the usage of the word "icon" in
celebrity culture. Historians
Asa Briggs and
Peter Burke, explained that term "
iconography" would pass into
high culture, and later in the twentieth century, into
popular culture, where "
icon" refers to a secular celebrity like
Madonna. She probably had a catalyst role, as
Marcel Danesi, a professor of semiotics and linguistic anthropology at the
University of Toronto cited in
Language, Society, and New Media: Sociolinguistics that the word "icon" is a "term of religious origin" and arguably "used for the first time in
celebrity culture to describe the American pop singer Madonna". Danesi also asserts that the word "is now used in reference to any widely known celebrity, male or female". After
The Advocate called her the "greatest gay icon", Guy Babineau from
Xtra Magazine stated in 2008: "I'm old enough to remember when people weren't called icons".
Longevity Usually, the pop icon status of a celebrity is contingent upon longevity of notoriety. This is in contrast to
cult icons, whose notoriety or recognition may be limited to a specific
subculture. Some pop icons have left a lasting and indelible mark in the area of their career, and then went on to attain a lasting place of recognition in society at large.
Ubiquity A common element of pop icon status is the ubiquity of imagery and allusions to the iconic figure. It is common for the figure to be recognized and even celebrated in areas outside the original source of celebrity status. An example of this is
Albert Einstein, a
physicist whose image and legacy have been represented in comic strips, T-shirts, greeting cards and many other contexts.{{cite book ==Distinction==