Ecological Wunderkind and heroic trollhunter: the celebrity saga of Greta Thunberg

ABSTRACT In December 2019, a Swedish climate activist was appointed Person of the Year by Time Magazine. Greta Thunberg was only 15 when she inspired a wave of school strikes and protest marches. She stole the media attention at a series of global summits, until public gatherings and international travels were interrupted by the pandemic. The aim of this article is to highlight a short but intense celebritisation process with culture-bound responses. First, I will establish Thunberg’s deep roots in a Nordic children’s culture, which defends bio-diversity with ‘superhoney’ and science. Then, I will compare the strong impact of an ecological Wunderkind in the EU with the polarised reactions in the US. In the conclusion, I will relate Thunberg’s activist strategy and persona to other types of eco-celebrities and discuss the significance of diverging time horizons.