Definition Essay: What Is A Villain?

What is a villain? By definition it is “the person or thing responsible for specified trouble, harm, or damage” or an antagonist who seems fit to be a terrible, evil, unjust person but to me villains are not that. Villains are people who are unfairly looked upon as villains such as those with tattoos, graffiti artists, hacktivists, or even urban climbers. These people are all labeled as villains because they do something out of the norm to make themselves happy or perhaps others when what they do does not harm anyone but instead helps someone. Many people throughout history are seen as villains because of the way they look or things they do, some of which are justified such as Hitler or Stalin yet many remain unjustified. A villain to me is someone who is seen in the public eye as a terrible person but not because what they do is terrible, it is seen as terrible. Those people are the people I look up to, those who have the courage to do what they want, say what they want, and think what they want even if it means getting immediately labeled as villainous for going outside social norms yet in the end make a meaningful impact.

I am a villain within society, I am different, I wear what I want, say what I want, do what I want to make myself or others happy, I will be seen as a hero to those I help and a villain to those I do not and in doing so I “Live like a villain, die as a hero” (Banksy, Wall and Piece).