Word: overdog
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...there's something novel about the circumstances of its launch. When the iPhone was released, Apple was a novice underdog entering a smart-phone market dominated by huge, established players like Nokia, Windows Mobile, Palm, Sony Ericsson and BlackBerry. But with the release of the iPad, Apple is an overdog for the first time. The smell of backlash is in the air. The blogosphere and tech magazines are ready to pounce. Apple has overreached itself. What is this device? Who needs it? (See TIME's Tech Buyer's Guide...
...MASH had the shock of the new. With its boisterous camaraderie, hearty and heartless, the film virtually created the modern concept of hipness. It kept surfacing in the overdog comedy of National Lampoon and Saturday Night Live and David Letterman and Spy magazine, in the stoned bravado of Bill and Ted and Beavis and Butt-head. (The Bill Murray persona, of blithe sarcasm and weary soldiering-on, could have been invented by Altman; it's a shame the two men never made a film together.) Amid the triage of Korea - read: Vietnam - Altman's super-cool medics found fraternity...
America, after all, is an overdog nation with an underdog mythology. We were founded when a scraggly, improvised army of renegades beat a superpower. Now we're a superpower that squashes scraggly, improvised armies of renegades. Our popular idea of a self-made businessman is Donald Trump, the billionaire son of a millionaire. We cheer for Seabiscuit when the rest of the world knows that we're really War Admiral...
...show that offers a shot to the little guy is not shy about advertising its overdog status. On the season debut, host Ryan Seacrest narrated a tribute to the show's popularity. "What started as a simple talent quest has become a national phenomenon," he said over video of seas of teen and twentysomething applicants thronging stadiums and audition halls like pilgrims on the hajj. "It's become a modern rite of passage, like going to the prom. You get your first car, you graduate from high school, and when we roll into your town, you audition for American Idol...
...would 35.5 million Americans tune in to agree? The AI auditions tell Americans as a country--with our massive army and troves of Olympic medals--that it's O.K. to root for the overdog, because, face it, the underdog is usually called that for good reason. But they also make us, as individuals, feel better about our own place in the pack. The American ideal of opportunity for all, which AI embodies, may be a blessing or a myth. But either way, it can also be oppressive. Because the corollary is that if you don't achieve your dreams...