Madonna in 2024: The Last Global Superstar Selling Cone Bras and NFTs to a Dying World
Madonna: One Name, Six Continents, and a Planet-Size Ego in Lip Gloss
By the time you finish this sentence, Madonna Ciccone will have reinvented herself again—possibly as a Portuguese fado singer, NFT guru, or UN goodwill ambassador for ageless provocation. The rest of us still struggle to update our Zoom backgrounds; she updates entire civilizations.
From the Berlin Wall’s rubble to the glass towers of Riyadh, Madonna has sold roughly 335 million records, which is coincidentally the same number of think-pieces declaring her “over” since 1989. Each obituary only adds another passport stamp: after the Vatican condemned “Like a Prayer,” Italian teens spray-painted her lyrics on 2,000-year-old monuments, thereby inventing both street art and the modern tourism headache. In Argentina, mothers of the disappeared danced to “Express Yourself” in Plaza de Mayo—proving that even state terror can’t cancel good disco. Tokyo DJs still spin “Vogue” at 5 a.m.; salarymen vogue badly, but voguing badly is still voguing, which is more cardio than their health-care system ever prescribed.
Meanwhile, the geopolitical Madonna Industrial Complex churns on. China allowed her 2015 Rebel Heart tour into Shanghai on the strict condition that she not simulate masturbation with a crucifix—an edict that instantly doubled black-market ticket prices and single-handedly revived the Shanghai crucifix-manufacturing sector. Saudi Arabia, fresh from discovering that women can drive without causing mass hysteria, flirted with booking her MDNA tour in 2012. The clerics ultimately balked at cone bras, but not before Riyadh’s underground gay scene adopted cone bras as revolutionary couture. Somewhere, a Saudi teenager stitched a sequin pastie under his thobe and felt, for three minutes, like the freest man alive.
The economics are equally absurd. Madonna’s net worth hovers around $850 million—enough to bankroll a small Balkan nation or, more realistically, buy the entire output of Malawi’s GDP for a week. Speaking of Malawi, her 2006 adoption of David Banda sparked a thousand Guardian columns about “white savior” optics. Ten years later, David speaks four languages and plays piano better than Elton John on a Tuesday; the Guardian pivoted to worrying about carbon footprints. Somewhere in the process, Malawi’s orphanage system got a new roof and Madonna learned how to pronounce “Lilongwe.” Everyone wins except the think-piece economy, which had to pivot to Harry and Meghan.
Europe treats her like a movable heritage site. In Lisbon, where she relocated for “authenticity” and arguably cheaper wine, locals now run unofficial Madonna Pub Crawls: drink a Super Bock at the kiosk where she allegedly buys cigarettes, then stumble past the palace where she allegedly practices Kabbalah with Portuguese fishwives. The EU has not yet applied for UNESCO listing, but give it time; bureaucrats adore paperwork that involves cone bras.
Not that the Americas are off the hook. Brazil elected a president who once tweeted that Madonna “should be arrested for witchcraft,” which only boosted her streaming numbers in São Paulo’s favelas. In Mexico City, feminist collectives marched to “Human Nature” during protests against femicide, turning a 1994 soft-core jam into a battle hymn. Somewhere, Sean Penn is Googling “how to delete 1985.”
And then there is the final frontier: the Metaverse. At 65, Madonna is auctioning digital versions of her vagina as NFTs—because if anyone is going to commodify the uncanny valley, it may as well be the woman who commodified crucifixes, cone bras, and motherhood. The avatars come with EKG readouts, a feature nobody asked for but which somehow feels inevitable in a world where even our fantasies now have vital signs.
So, what does Madonna mean in 2024? She is the last monoculture, a living Rosetta Stone of late-capitalist desire. Every scandal, reinvention, and Instagram filter is a reminder that nations rise, currencies collapse, but a blonde ambition can still get through customs without a visa. The planet will melt, democracy will glitch, yet somewhere a drag queen in Kuala Lumpur is perfecting the “Hung Up” choreography, proving that the apocalypse will at least have a decent soundtrack.
When the historians of whatever species succeeds us sift through the rubble, they will find a tiara, a Gaultier corset, and a USB stick labeled “Madame X Tour—Lisbon Edition.” They will not understand the language, but they will recognize the pose: arms wide, eyes narrowed, asking the eternal question—“Are you ready to jump?” The answer, across six continents and whatever remains of the internet, will still be yes.
