For most of my life, I have had a strange fascination for charisma. Let me explain. It all started when I was a teenager and for the exact period of a hot second thought I wanted to become a politician. Some have phases of acne I happened to have a severe case of chancelloritis. I started reading books about politicians who had come before Andrea the Great and I kept running into descriptions of Willy Brandt, a former chancellor of Germany, who was constantly referred to as charismatic. No further explanations, just that: charismatic. As there was nothing I could cling onto except for the fact that he apparently kept getting elected because he was so charismatic I imagined it to be an energy that came upon you when he appeared. Something warm and fuzzy, an instant captivation, maybe a soft light that materialised, angels faintly chanting in the background.
For a while, I walked through life trying to gauge whether people had charisma or not. I realised quickly I would mostly judge them on their appearance because I was a teenager and shockingly superficial. The more beautiful they were, the more charismatic they were in my eyes. But that couldn’t be it. With no offence to the dead, Willy Brandt was fine, I guess, but beautiful?
Then, one day, a person who had recently met former president of the United States Bill Clinton at a golf tournament (I mean, really, the story writes itself) couldn’t stop talking about how charismatic he was. He – again, no offence - certainly wasn’t beautiful. Everyone was listening in awe until I just had to interrupt and ask:
What does that really mean – charismatic? In what form was he charismatic?
The person thought about it for a few minutes and then said that Bill Clinton gave you the feeling you were the most important person in the room. And apparently, he still remembered this person’s name half an hour later. That sounded nice and all but I couldn’t quite believe somebody would become president of the United States solely on the ability of remembering people’s names. Later I found out it actually required much less than that.
The politics and charisma obsession faded as did the teenage years. I became an adult and a professional tennis player. I climbed up the ladder of the international tennis rankings and became a regular in locker rooms of major tournaments. And suddenly, so long forgotten so instantaneously back, I felt it. Charisma. It was there around me at all times. Some players who you think have it, don’t have it and others you wouldn’t even put on a shortlist do. You can have it and lose it, too. Sometimes, it’s just the fact that there’s a big name and everyone makes a fuss about it which makes you confused.
There was the regular charisma as I would come to call it. Naomi Osaka, Jim Courier, Boris Becker have it. A very straight forward type that either makes you want to look at the person all the time or has the opposite effect where you have the strong urge to look away at once. Seriously, you try to withstand the ice-cold gaze of Jim Courier’s light blue eyes and then come back to me. I heard people experienced ego death from trying.
I think the kids over on TikTok have come to call it aura.
Yet then, there’s the other kind. The scary kind.
Four times in my life have I felt real, glass-shattering, mind-boggling, tectonic plates moving charisma. The kind that would make your hair stand up on your neck when the person entered the room. Serena, Roger, Novak and Rafa. The thing is, it was fleeting. They are in itself charismatic people as anyone who has ever seen them will know. Regular charismatic. But the energetic sizzling of the air, the type that makes atoms rearrange in a room, faded like warm summer nights in September. The times it was there were the seasons when they were at the peak of their powers. Invincible, not human, something other. It was as if natural charisma had been propelled to cosmic charisma. Undeniable and haptic. And then, it just went away again.
I thought about this a lot as you can imagine. My theory is that people who are at the top of their craft, who always strive for perfection, who are just better than most people at what they do already, get one or two strikes of genius per life where the universe conspires on their behalf and an impenetrable protective shield appears around them. The shield is what makes the particles in the air shiver and your hair stand up on your neck. I know it sounds crazy but I’ve been there and I felt it. If it’s not real then somebody please call an ambulance because yours truly is losing it.
This doesn’t only apply to sports. The English band Arctic Monkeys have always had fantastic albums. Still do. They are a well-respected band - musicians applaud them, fans love them - very successful. Despite having always been big in Europe they somehow managed to retain their Indie charm. In 2013 they released a new album, AM, which everywhere and all at once became a huge commercial hit. NME ranked AM number 449 on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time after it had only been out for a month. They had done their work, they had perfected their craft and for one album cycle the universe conspired on their behalf. I wasn’t near them when it happened but I’m sure the air around them hissed when you got close.
This doesn’t mean that whatever comes after is bad. In tennis or art. It just means that it’s back to being fallible. Human not heavenly. Something we can identify with. We may thrive on masterpieces but we survive on craftsmanship. One can’t come into existence without the other.
A Princeton study has found that charisma is a formula. Supposedly, it’s 50% competence and 50% warmth. If you have warmth without competence people will like you but perceive you as soft and not take you seriously. If you have competence without warmth people will respect and fear you but not love you. Half competence, half warmth. Half human, half beast. It sounds sensible. I just think they never tried to get the last portion of pasta in a nearly empty players’ restaurant when a faint angel’s voice began to sing, the air started to buzz, my ears started to ring and one of the above mentioned four tennis players swooped in and stole it from me. I had frozen into an invisible statue. Charisma, boy, it’s real.
For all those who worry whether they have it or not, do not despair. The comedian Jimmy Carr has a bit on how every person in the world is either charming or charismatic. It’s important to know which one you are to be able to work with it. It really doesn’t matter, however, in which category you fall. He gives an example. Jennifer Aniston is charming. Angelina Jolie is charismatic. The punchline is, of course, both got to sleep with Brad Pitt.
It’s up to us to find out whether we are charming or charismatic. And in the end, we all get to sleep with Brad Pitt.
Things that make me happy:
I’ve been reading Joan Didion’s biography The Last Love Song written by Tracy Daugherty. The writing is stunning and besides Joan Didion’s life the book also subtly teaches you all you need to know about California. Joan Didion was deeply Californian and what Tracy Daugherty distills so beautifully is how everything we read from her needs to be seen through the lens of her upbringing in an ever-changing landscape (literally and metaphorically) that is California. Which brings me to…
Things that make me unhappy:
Being an immigrant (my parents came from then Yugoslavia to Germany when I was just a baby) and reading this book made me realise that I will never have what Didion had. I will always just be a traveler in the world, uprooted, like a pollen in the wind that causes nothing but allergies. Home is where I lay my hat, I guess. I will have my own stories to tell. They will not be of California (probably).
Who’s the most charismatic person you know? Are you charming or charismatic? When will you sleep with Brad Pitt? Do you even like the Arctic Monkeys? So many questions to guide you into a hopefully joy-filled weekend. In the meantime, I remain…
Yours truly, Andrea
I always thought Marshall McLuhan's definition of charisma was funny and kind of true -- "Charisma means looking like a lot of other people". I always took that to mean, it's not about standing out or being unique, but being a mirror (ahem, paging Dr. Lacan ...) in which people see themselves.
I think Jacques Lacan would say that our desires are shaped by the desires of others and by the social structures and language that surround us - so maybe charisma is just some unconscious embodying of other's people's desires ... that we'll never ever attain!
Great piece, thank you for making my brain churn with your insight!
Now that is going to be a fun entry to muse on until at least next week! The thing about charisma is not only analyzing what it is, but that despite much analysis it’s almost impossible to acquire, despite millions of humans working at aquiring it.