Guitar Heroes (Real Ones)

***This is just my opinion***

This might be a some what bold statement, but I am going to go out on a limb and say that in this day and age there are no guitar heroes. Let me clarify, there are no NEW guitar heroes. All of the guitar heroes of the world and any genre of music are from yesteryear. Don't get me wrong here, there are tons of guitar players who are talented no question about it, but to me a guitar hero is one who makes you want to pickup the instrument and learn a new song, new technique, or just to learn how to play period.
When I taught guitar lessons every kid came in and wanted to learn how to play like Angus Young, Kirk Hammett, Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen, Jimmy Page, and a few others. The point is that a few of those guys are currently producing new work, but for the most part they are guys from the past who haven't done anything in sometime for various reasons. They were the whole package. They looked cool, wrote awesome songs, and could really play. Now an days the guys you see in the magazines can essentially just do tricks like sweep picking and tapping (which is sort of ironic due to the fact that those are things that the older guitar heroes taught them), they don't write good songs (it's subjective, but that's what I think), and they look like tools.
Now just because I say that there aren't any new guitar heroes, that doesn't mean that there aren't any great/good new(er) guitar players. They are everywhere you just need to use your ears. They just lack what the greats of yesteryear had. Those guys were and still are able to inspire people to play and get better.

As much as they might have had no intention of it, or if people want to disagree about it, I think that the last guitar heroes were some of the Grunge players. After that, it's been all downhill.