Word: americanus
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...television-era candidate. At one point, I squinted a bit and saw him in the middle distance: blue suit, white shirt, red tie, high forehead, slick black hair, tan, tall and ramrod straight - he could have been an exhibit in some future Museum of Natural History: Politicianus americanus. Matt Lauer and a Today show crew were following him around, and at the high school speech Romney did a slightly cheesy thing, inviting Lauer on stage, amping his candidacy with a.m. glitz. Romney said that "in a moment of frivolity" he had picked up a tabloid magazine and found that Lauer...
...performers eventually warm up to the reality star--which is nice of them, seeing as how they're starring in a reality show themselves. But this little incident epitomizes a key moment in the evolution of celebritus americanus, akin to the day Neanderthal man first came face to face with the Cro-Magnon: reality stars, and at least the lower tier of "real" celebrities, have become indistinguishable. As reality TV has turned the likes of Richard Hatch and Kelly Clarkson into cheap, commodified and replaceable mini-celebs, the culture of celebrity has changed. "In Hollywood," says David Perler, executive producer...