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Who has the most recognized face in the world?

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Don't go with sports stars or actors - there are always going to be demographics who don't give a shit about that stuff. Like Lionel Messi is only someone I've really only come to know by face in the past couple years because I don't care about soccer.

With that in mind, I really can't think of a single demographic in the world (who has access to television or internet) that wouldn't know Obama's face. Seriously, if you showed a picture of Obama to damn near anyone in the world and they didn't know who he was, wouldn't you be kind of shocked? An iconic face with iconic features that's not just a haircut. Obviously his job helps.
 
lord quas said:
I'd say considering a large part of the earth's population is Chinese...

266px-Mao_Zedong_portrait.jpg


is probably up there too
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It's not a competition, Soph. Although if it was, Mao would probably win.
 
Has to be Whitney Houston though.

Even deep in a cave sixty miles outside of bumfuk Afghanistan, some people were her biggest fans.
 
HarryKS said:
Ha.

Commonwealth baby, commonwealth. She's the Queen.
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Yeah no. I'm sure most people in the world know about the Queen of England, but is her FACE recognizable across the entire world? I don't see it. Monroe on the other hand has an iconic look/face that's left a mark in popular culture. Source: I'm from the Mid East and I saw pictures/parodies/inspirations of her look in pop culture ever since I was a kid.

People saying Mao, are you serious? Mao isn't remotely as recognizable as Hitler or even Che. How many people in, say, the Middle East or Latin America or Africa recognize Mao? I never heard of Mao growing up nor even learn about him in school.
 
My immediate thought was Hitler, but I wonder if the young in Africa and Asia actually study enough western history to know him en masse. If they don't, it's probably someone currently alive and recognised across the world, so probably Obama (little side note here: in League of Legends, which is massively popular in China, there's a black gunslinger by the name of Lucian. Only on the Chinese servers, apparently no one uses his real name, as he's universally known as 'Obama').
 
There are lots of more specific questions you could ask, such as most recognizable living person. I guess that would be Obama. Or Queen Elizabeth II. Or Psy :p
 
To people saying former presidents like Lincoln and Franklin, they have very limited exposure outside of North America.

I guarantee most of my friends in the UK couldn't name them (apart from Bush Jr, Obama and possibly George Washington).
 
Mao is definitely up there. I mean think about, every person in China knows his face, as well as most people in the West too.

Surprised no ones brought up Putin, I feel like he's one of the most recognisable faces alive today.

Obama is definitely a very recognisable face, but the most famous ever? I get there's a lot of Americans on here, but I think that's just silly.
 
As a European I can identify Washington (the dude with the wooden teeth, thank you Fairly OddParents), Franklin and Lincoln but come on.

Maybe the Dalai Lama (if we're excluding Hitler).
 
Catvoca said:
Mao is definitely up there. I mean think about, every person in China knows his face, as well as most people in the West too.

Surprised no ones brought up Putin, I feel like he's one of the most recognisable faces alive today.

Obama is definitely a very recognisable face, but the most famous ever? I get there's a lot of Americans on here, but I think that's just silly.
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I'm British and I spent a lot of time in Taiwan. His global "brand" as it were is absolutely massive.
 
Baconsaurus Rex said:
What?
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Don't judge, I'm not american and I only ever saw American dollars in movies. I can't remember off the top of my head what all your presidents look like. I knew what Franklin looked like so that's at least something.

It's definitely due to a lack in knowlege on my part, but just the fact that this can happen should show you that there's no way in hell an old US president has the most recognizable face on earth.
 
I don't get why this is still a 'debate'.

Every education system in the world teaches kids about Hitler in history class i'd assume. To compare that kind of worldwide recognition to fleeting popstars, actors or what-have-you is kind of insane. Some of you really overestimate their cultural relevancy.
 
So I showed these pictures to my turkish grandmother who didn't go to school, doesn't use the internet and only occasionally watches turkish TV.
The people she recognized were Hitler, Queen Elizabeth, Obama, Michael Jackson, Osama and Muhammad Ali. Funnily she mistook the Che drawing for a turkish communist revolutionary called Deniz Gezmis.

My mother who also doesn't really follow non-turkish pop culture at all and only watches turkish TV shows and only uses the internet to stay in touch with her relatives in Turkey, knew all the above people as well and in addition to that Bill Clinton, Merkel, Elvis and Angelina Jolie.

They both didn't recognize Jesus btw.
 
GTP_Daverytimes said:
Thats a load of shit, oprah is pretty freaking well known around the world. One of very few americans that can be said about (the other being Micheal Jackson.
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The first time I heard of Oprah was here, in Neogaf, because of the Michael Jordan laughing Gif.

She is really irrelevant in France, and I don't think we're an exception.
 
It definitely has to be Jesus. As old and revered as the bible is it really isn't even close. Good thread TC.
 
Hitler, Mao, maybe Gandhi

MJ kept changing his face, how could he be most recognised?

Che would only be widely recognised in that drawing of him, which is exactly what the OP disallows. Pretty sure an actual photo wouldn't come close.

If we can include fictional characters this is a lot harder...

Most recognised female: The Queen I guess
Most recognised non-awful person: Gandhi?
 
LiquidMetal14 said:
It definitely has to be Jesus. As old and revered as the bible is it really isn't even close. Good thread TC.
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I will remind you that of all the Christians in the world, not every location outside of the Western World has the same conception(if even they have a particular image) of Jesus.

Besides the fact that we do not know what the man Jesus looked like, even in the West there are multiple conceptions of him to make his face unrecognizable to those outside of it.

Once we add in differing religions, Jesus is probably below more recent figures.
 
Right now, Obama.
Almost recognized for everyone for Western world.
Very known for middle east countries because the big influence.
Known for most of the people in Central and South america.
Less known for most of the people in India and China, but still a lot of people must have seen his face from TV.
 
Y8njKmP.jpg


(it says "he's back" - this is from a recent german book where Hitler comes back to this time. Rather sucesfull book and it also has a (comedy) movie.
 
Whoever's saying Oprah is lying to themselves and America. I didn't know what she looked like until a few years ago, and I'm pretty confident the majority of my friends (varied age groups/nationalities) wouldn't know who her face either. She's nowhere near Hitler/Mickey Mouse/Mario/whatever.

Anyway, her's my entry, which I'm surprised hasn't been suggested yet:

piuK5rQ.jpg


Though I guess it's cheating...
 
Oersted said:
To be fair, India and China for example are still fairly isolated in terms of spread. Stuff gets produced for them, but they don't reach many markets.

Western culture dominates the world.
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Michael Jackson is well known in India, at least in the cities. Not sure about his face.

It's probably Hitler in the Western world, or Obama.
Excluding them:

I'm going with Gandhi, more people outside of India know who is in comparison to Mao.

A lot the answers in this thread are Americocentric are not even remotely well known to probably 6/7 billion people.
 
Africanus said:
I will remind you that of all the Christians in the world, not every location outside of the Western World has the same conception(if even they have a particular image) of Jesus.

Besides the fact that we do not know what the man Jesus looked like, even in the West there are multiple conceptions of him to make his face unrecognizable to those outside of it.

Once we add in differing religions, Jesus is probably below more recent figures.
Click to expand...

Right. Cesare Borgia posing as Christ is the most widespread though.
 
*Splinter said:
Hitler, Mao, maybe Gandhi

MJ kept changing his face, how could he be most recognised?

Che would only be widely recognised in that drawing of him, which is exactly what the OP disallows. Pretty sure an actual photo wouldn't come close.

If we can include fictional characters this is a lot harder...

Most recognised female: The Queen I guess
Most recognised non-awful person: Gandhi?
Click to expand...

Sadly Ghandi was quite awful if you were a Black South African.
 
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