The Modern Gadfly...

The gadfly in Greek mythology is identified as a tormentor to one of Zeus's side lover, Io, because Zeus's wife, Hera, was jealous. At first Zeus turned Io into a heifer, a young female cow, to hide her away from his wife. His wife finds out about this so she sends a gadfly to torment Io forever.

The gadfly, as told by Plato, is exactly what Socrates was. Plato referred to Socrates as a social gadfly because Socrates would bug the heck out of higher government officials. A gadfly, in Plato's words, is somebody who upsets the status quo by asking questions that may upset the higher power. Socrates was this person.

To me, based on these two perspectives, it seems as if a gadfly is anything that seems to annoy another party, usually a more powerful or inspirational party. For example, there's always that one student who just likes to bug the teacher and students about how he knows more than them. Then there are some students who follow this one student and laugh along or agree with him, which could be referred to as his little clique. Of course, this student wouldn't be anybody that I would want to be around, unless we shared some opinions.

Honestly, it's very difficult to express who can be considered a modern gadfly. It depends on your own point of view. Like we see Socrates as such a powerful thinker and all that jazz, but we never stopped and wondered about what the other people, the government, was feeling. Maybe they thought that Socrates was just an a-hole. Maybe Socrates's little group thought of him as an  idol and looked up to him or maybe they, too, thought that Socrates may have crossed the line a couple of time. We don't really know for sure what's truly going on. Maybe one of Socrates's student was a gadfly towards Socrates himself; that'd be a total ironic event haha.