- 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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