- Day -365.0 to -90.0: Blind items appear regularly, with increasingly transparent identifying puns
- Day -90.0 to 0.0: News stories begin to refer to star as "controversial" or to his/her "party lifestyle"
- Day -90.0 to 0.0: News stories rebutted by soothingly illogical dissembling by well-paid PR staff
- Day 0.0: Eruption of luridly detailed, difficult-to-spin event
- Day 0.2: Early adopters begin making knowing references
- Day 0.5: Early adopters begin making parody videos
- Day 0.5: Jokes begin to take the form of repetition of quotes or slogans in lieu of actual punch lines
- Day 1.0: Celebrities tweet earnest messages of concern for fellow celebrity, punctuated with earnest exclamation points
- Day 1.0: Mass consumption of parody videos
- Day 1.0: Sharp-witted opportunists begin selling sloganized t-shirts
- Day 1.5: Dim-witted would-be ironists begin purchasing sloganized t-shirts
- Day 2.0: Publication of stories by laziest journalists in the world collating quotes from celebrity tweets of earnest concern
- Day 2.0: Complete cultural saturation of jokes taking the form of repetition of slogans in lieu of actual punch lines
- Day 2.0: Twitter experiences unusually high load at the moment. Please be patient and try again later
- Day 2.0: Parody videos cease being funny, do not cease being made
- Day 2.0: Slack-jawed nation begins to develop chemical tolerance to scandal, requires greater concentration of scandal to remain entertained
- Day 2.0: Celebrity begins experimenting with ways to profit from media saturation
- Day 3.0: Early adopters adopt policy of prefacing every joke about scandal with prophylactic joke about how tired they are of scandal
- Day 3.5: Meredith Vieira learns about scandal, is amused
- Day 4.0: Dim-witted would-be ironists receive sloganized t-shirts via UPS 2-day shipping
- Day 4.5: TMZ and celebrity convene focus groups to figure out how to extend story cycle; agree to engage in and cover self-consciously scandalous behavior for mutual benefit
- Day 5.0: Dim-witted would-be ironists who selected UPS 2-day shipping don sloganized t-shirts
- Day 5.2: Dim-witted would-be ironists try to gauge reactions of passers-by
- Day 5.3: Dim-witted would-be ironists feel kind of insecure, change back into timelessly ironic t-shirts
- Day 6.0: Dim-witted would-be ironists who didn't pay for UPS 2-day shipping receive packages, experience buyers' remorse
- Day 6.0: Ann Curry learns about scandal, makes joke, laughs at own joke, silently congratulates herself for her currency
- Day 6.7: Nation implores Saturday Night Live not to make already-tired joke about scandal
- Day 6.701: Nation's mother laughs at Saturday Night Live joke about scandal
- Day 60: Haitian relief organizations note sharp uptick in receipt of "vatican warlock assassin" t-shirts
- Day 155: Law & Order franchise and pornography company engage in frantic race to be first to market with ripped-from-the-headlines product
- Day 820: Book's vague, passing reference to scandal seems dated; is rare sour note in otherwise keenly-observed novel
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
I HAVE A LIMO/RIDE IN THE TRUNK/I LOCK THE DOORS/IN CASE I GET DRUNK: The life cycle of a celebrity scandal:
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Winning.
ReplyDeleteDo not say that word.
ReplyDeleteI went to the comments to post how awesome I thought this post was (esp re: Viera and Curry's reaction times) and then saw Meghan's comment and the awesomeness only increased.
ReplyDeleteIs it sad I wasn't sure if this was about Charlie Sheen or Lindsay Lohan at first?
ReplyDeleteAlso, a lady that I work with is absolutely horror-struck at this turn of events... because her favorite character was fired from her favorite show. She asks me about it almost every day, just to see if I've heard something that means said show will be back on the air soon.
I was all excited to wear my #tigerblood t-shirt tomorrow (I chose ground shipping) and this post took the wind right out of my sails.
ReplyDeleteSomewhere around Day 4.4 The Soup makes a joke about the scandal and the media coverage that ought to be the last word thereon, but surely won't be.
ReplyDeleteIt was meant as a compliment.
ReplyDeleteThank you all, and especially Isaac, for once again providing that special sort of fun-house mirror in which I can observe this sorts of celebrity melt-down phenomena without hating myself or being tempted to buy the sort of t-shirts that inevitably leave me hating myself.
ReplyDelete