Exporting Enigma: How Jacob Elordi Became the World’s Last Universal Product

Jacob Elordi: How One Very Tall Australian Became the Planet’s Last Universal Export

Brisbane, 1997: a baby is born who will eventually grow to six-foot-five and be shipped to Los Angeles in a crate marked “Euphoric Talent, Handle With Care.” Twenty-six years later, that same crate has circled the globe so many times it now qualifies for its own carbon offset. Jacob Elordi—once a rugby-obsessed kid who could barely pronounce “Kardashian”—has become the rare cultural commodity that bypasses customs entirely. From Seoul subway ads for Calvin Klein to São Paulo billboards spruiking Prada, his face is the new Esperanto: everyone gets it, even if no one quite knows what it means.

In an era when nations weaponize trade tariffs and streaming platforms erect digital Iron Curtains, Elordi slips through every firewall like a VPN wearing cheekbones. The French call him “le beau ténébreux,” the Germans prefer “der große Traurige,” and in Tokyo convenience stores his image on a bottle of iced coffee single-handedly outsells actual caffeine. Meanwhile, American critics insist on debating whether he’s a serious actor or just a walking cologne ad, blissfully unaware that to the rest of the planet the distinction is as quaint as arguing over whether the monarchy is useful.

Consider the macroeconomics. Hollywood’s traditional soft-power pipeline—Tom Cruise dangling from your Burj Khalifa—is aging out, and the industry urgently needs fresh sinew. Enter Elordi, an Australian who speaks fluent Netflix and can emote in two accents: American Tormented and British Period Piece. He’s basically a bilateral trade agreement in human form, boosting Los Angeles studio revenues while single-handedly keeping Sydney’s sun-bed salons solvent. Analysts at the Lowy Institute (yes, they study this stuff between summits on nuclear proliferation) estimate that Elordi’s global brand collaborations now exceed the GDP of several Pacific micro-nations. Tuvalu, please take notes.

Yet the real brilliance lies in his thematic flexibility. In Saltburn, he plays an aristocratic fever dream who seduces the entire English class system—useful imagery for anyone still clinging to post-Brexit relevance. In Priscilla, he reincarnates Elvis as a haunted marionette, thereby allowing Gen Z to experience American imperial decline without reading a single history book. Streaming algorithms from Lagos to Lapland splice these roles into trailers so seamless that viewers mistake psychosexual gothic drama for a perfume commercial. It’s soft power by osmosis: you came for the jawline, you stayed for the commentary on late-stage capitalism.

Of course, global ubiquity has its side effects. In Seoul, plastic-surgery clinics now advertise “The Elordi Procedure,” a package involving clavicle lengthening and melancholy eyebrows. In Buenos Aires, counterfeit beard oil labeled “Eau de Jacob” sells faster than inflation can devalue the peso. Even the Vatican’s social-media team briefly flirted with a moody Elordi meme captioned “This is my body, broken for you—no, literally, have you seen the abs?” before cooler cassocks prevailed.

And then there is the question of national identity. Australia once exported Crocodile Dundee and a sense that every problem could be solved with a bigger knife. Now it ships existential angst wrapped in swimwear. When Elordi returns home for Christmas, tabloids treat him like a rare marsupial on the verge of extinction: “Will Hollywood steal our last tall boy?” The prime minister, sensing a diplomatic asset, offers him an ambassadorship for “Wellness & Aesthetic Affairs.” Jacob politely declines, presumably because the dental plan doesn’t cover brooding.

So what does it mean for the rest of us, sweating through geopolitical heatwaves and subscription fatigue? Simply this: in a fragmented world where trust in institutions erodes faster than polar ice, we have agreed—tacitly, inexplicably—to place a modicum of faith in a 26-year-old Queenslander who looks like he learned kissing from a Victorian novel. It’s not rational, but neither is most human behavior since 2016. Call it the Elordi Doctrine: when everything else fails, export a beautiful enigma and let the globe project its neuroses onto him. Just pray the supply chain holds; if the boy stubs a toe tomorrow, several continents might lose the will to moisturize.