Year in Review

This is the year that celebrity culture went off the rails. Leading the way was the Hollywood triple threat of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears. How do we hate all this celebrity love? Let us count the wayward.

Paris goes to jail for three weeks. A firestorm within the media firestorm is sparked when she's released early. After her release, she gives a series of interviews, culminating in a Larry King Live appearance, in which she talks of her jailhouse conversion from spoiled party girl to selfless global servant. She announces a humanitarian trip to Rwanda, but then comes the inevitable news that the trip is postponed, presumably until Hard Rock can open a hotel/casino there.

Lindsay is arrested on drunk driving charges while awaiting a court date on a previous drunk driving charge. She is in and out (and in and out) of rehab. At this point, let's just consider any time she spends out of a treatment facility as her being in prehab.

And then there's Britney. This was the year she turned her meltdown into tabloid performance art. The club-hopping commando turned her panty-free privates into a paparazzi photo-op; that is, when they weren't snapping pics of the mother of two driving around with a toddler in her lap. Between missing court dates and skipping parenting classes, the Britster turned in a wobbly, sloshing performance at the MTV Music Video Awards that will live on in Internet infamy.

Forget caviar dreams and champagne wishes, the lifestyle of the rich and famous has become a blur of divorce, DUIs and rehab. The drop-dead death of Anna Nicole Smith, leaving behind a baby girl, a palimony suit and a hotel room full of drugs and booze may be but the opening act in this era of terminal celebrity.

YouTube.com via Wikipedia.org

Chris Crocker posted video of himself pleading with the world: "Leave Britney alone!"

1 Cry Me a River – A new form of voyeuristic entertainment involving people engaged in a deeply personal physical act on camera – crying – is hot stuff, sort of like pornography only with groans of despair rather than pleasure. Call it sobography. First there was the young man who became a YouTube sensation by videotaping himself tearfully pleading for everyone to "leave Britney alone." Then it was Ellen DeGeneres opening a show in October by breaking down and tearing up over the misadventures of finding a new home for her adopted dog, Iggy.

2 Deja Juice – There he is in court again – O.J. Simpson. If he didn't look older and heavier, you'd think you were having a flashback to 1995. But this time, football memorabilia and a Las Vegas hotel room serve as the backdrop. Will we see another "trial of the century" in 2008? Not if no one tunes into watch.

3 Cougar Craze – Suddenly we're seeing and hearing about them everywhere: older women who prey on younger men, a.k.a. cougars. One of the judges on Dancing with the Stars called Marie a "hot cougar," a 30 Rock episode, titled – what else? – "Cougars," had Tina Fey dating a 20-something man-boy who lived with his mom, on and on the 2007 cougar sightings go. Blame or credit goes to celebrities like Demi Moore and fictional characters like Samantha from Sex and the City. In lieu of a cute nickname, older guys who date younger women will continue to be known as "men."

NBC.com

A screen shot from Saturday Night Live 's "[Expletive] in a Box" digital short

4 Amateur Age – The ubiquity of high-speed Internet access and easy-breezy set-up of video sites like YouTube have fueled the viral video phenomenon. Forget studios and distributors and marketing divisions, not to mention millions of dollars. Now, any little film clip – a Miss Teen USA contestant stammering through an answer, a University of Florida student being arrested while yelling "Don't Tase me, bro" – no matter how low-tech or unpolished, can become an international hit.

AP

Little Rock, Ark., July: Saida Miller was one of millions worldwide to celebrate the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in costume.

5 But Pros Rule – Amateur auteurs may have fueled the phenomenon, but once the power and potential of viral videos was established, professional filmmakers quickly swooped in. Saturday Night Live castmember Andy Samberg has established himself as a viral-video wizard with a series of hilarious shorts, such as last year's team-up with Justin Timberlake, "[Expletive] in a Box." And SNL alum Will Ferrell had the viral-video of 2007 with "The Landlord," featuring a trash-talking tot.

6 There's Something About Harry – Celebrities and their meltdowns come and go, and nobody is going to look back and remember that 2007 was the year that patent leather shoes and metallic handbags were hot. But in the future, when the sky is filled with flying cars and jet-pack-powered pedestrians, 2007 will be remembered as the year that the Harry Potter saga came to a close with the seventh and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Let's just think of the media dust-up over J.K. Rowling's outing of Dumbledore as part of the grieving process.

AP

Sanjaya in March on American Idol

7 Writer's Strike – That potentially the biggest story in pop culture going into the new year involves a union going on strike seems about as likely and anachronistic as the return of Prohibition. With most shows still drawing on a reserve of new episodes, the clash between well-paid writers and their even better-paid corporate overlords hasn't really hit home yet. But just wait until primetime TV is wall-to-wall eat-a-bug-or-marry-your-sister reality shows.

8 The Sanjaya Effect – Like a digital army of graffiti artists or Bart-Simpson-styled pranksters, American Idol voters, urged on by Web sites such as VotefortheWorst.com, kept the outrageously coiffed but tone-deaf singer in the competition despite the judges' disdain. He was eliminated after making it into the final seven; ratings for the show promptly dropped.

9 A Year of Green Days – Al Gore won a Nobel Prize for his work tackling climate change, with the global-warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth his most high-profile effort. And all four broadcast networks showcased some sort of environmental-awareness campaign. In a sure sign of saturation in our consumer culture, Barney's New York kicked off a "Have a Green Holiday" campaign that includes Rudolph the Recycling Reindeer.

10 iPhone Tech-tacular – People lined up and slept on sidewalks just to be one of the first to buy Apple's new iPhone. Electronic gadgets are the new status symbols. Lots of excited talk about the easy interface, wireless connection, rotating video screen and so on, but the real breakthrough was getting people to pay $600 for a cellphone.

"I would like to make a difference. God has given me this new chance."
—Paris Hilton, during a post-jail interview with Barbara Walters

"Don't Tase me, bro."
—University of Florida student Andrew Meyer, who was arrested, and Tasered, by campus police after an outburst during a speech by Sen. John Kerry

"I personally believe the U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have maps, and, uh, I believe that our education, like such as South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like, such as ... and I believe that they should ... "
—Miss Teen USA competitor Lauren Caitlin Upton of South Carolina, endeavoring to answer the question, "Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the United States on a world map. Why do you think this is?"