Reality television created a fame path requiring no talent

Evidence

A decade earlier, Hilton’s lack of talent in the performing arts would have capped her ascent. But by 2003, reality TV opened a new career path. Bunim Murray Productions decided to build a reality show around Hilton and her friend, Lionel Richie’s daughter, Nicole. Modeled after the 1960s sitcom Green Acres, The Simple Life cast Hilton as a ditzy Manhattan socialite in rural Arkansas, leaning heavily on her catchphrase, “That’s hot.” Hilton embraced the character as both a shield and a “ticket to financial freedom.” “Paris Hilton,” she later admitted, was “the character I played—part Lucy, part Marilyn.” — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 145

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s ‘omnivore monoculture’ thesis — Hilton as an early emblem of flattened, content-free celebrity signaling.