I recall watching the movie adaptation of The Great Gatsby back in 2013. Baz Luhrmann created a visual spectacle, featuring Leonardo DiCaprio as the titular character who has become part of multiple memes. And who can forget Lana Del Rey's haunting vocals for the theme "Young and Beautiful"? I read the original novel soon after, and was pretty struck by how deep the underlying themes run.
Fast forward to 2025, and it has been exactly a century since F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby. One hundred years later, its themes feel eerily familiar. The excessive wealth, the disillusionment, the relentless pursuit of a dream—all of it maps almost perfectly onto today’s tech-fueled, crypto-charged, influencer-driven landscape. This struck me on a commute home last week and as I thought about it, the main characters do reflect segments of modern day society.
Tom is the gatekeeper of old power. He is loud, aggressive, and entitled—living proof that wealth doesn’t equal class. He dominates conversations and people, and he always lands on his feet. He is brutish and cruel, and infidelity comes naturally to him.
Daisy is the ultimate prize—beautiful, elusive, and hollow. Gatsby's fixation isn't with her personality, but with the status and security she represents.
In 2025, Daisy represents the old political elite, the traditional Republican establishment, the donor class, and old money. She doesn’t take action; she lets others fight for her attention and then quietly retreats to her insulated world.
Myrtle wants out. She wants to escape the greyness of her world and step into one of glamor and power. But she’s used, discarded, and ultimately destroyed by the very system she tries to join. She chases after Tom, believing that he will bring her a life of glamour, but only to be run over by Daisy who is driving Gatsby's car.
Blissfully ignorant of the affair his wife (fellow poor) are having with Tom, a man from Old Money, he becomes a pawn in the rivalry between Tom and Gatsby and ends up blaming and killing Gatsby for the death of his wife, before ending his own.
Who then does Gatsby represent?
Gatsby was a self-made man, though through means which are not exactly deemed as completely honest. His pursuit of Daisy represents his desire for status in society; similarly, the glitzy parties he threw were to chase the image. Does he really love Daisy? Probably not as much as he is in love with the ideal of what Daisy represented.
Today's Gatsby is the tech founder or crypto bro chasing legitimacy and glory. He came from nothing, made his millions (or billions) through unconventional means, and now seeks social capital to match his financial one. He is obsessed with status symbols, but beneath the surface lies a gnawing emptiness—a desire to be seen and accepted by a world that may never truly embrace him.
Fitzgerald's tale is timeless - humans have been chasing glamour, status and power. However, history does seem to run in cycles - as the world today seems to be on a precipice into a Great Depression-style recession, wars raging/threatening to rage around the world - we seem to have come full circle back into the disenchantment and the end of an era. If we follow the storyline, it's clear who we should not be - Gatsby's tale of dream-chasing ends up in tragedy and he gets blamed for the death of Myrtle even though he is innocent, and almost nobody really mourns his death. If you agree with the above, then perhaps, like me, you've become Nick and maybe you might be haunted by the death of Gatsby in the future.
P.S. Who Jordan Baker represents is left as an open question - I have my own ideas.