TV confession formats marked a demotic turn attaching fame to ordinary lived experience

Evidence

Since celebrities can be groomed by experts in the traditional media industry, logically speaking, any ordinary, everyday person can be groomed into celebritydom irrespective of whether they have extraordinary achievements, talented skills, or prominent positions in society. As media formats evolved and television genres diversified, ordinary people were increasingly attaining flash fame as guests on talk shows. Specifically, confessional formats like The Jerry Springer Show and intervention formats like Dr. Phil, where ordinary people are thrust into the spotlight to have their private lives and personal issues turned into public spectacles and commercial subjects, saw the proliferation of fame being attached to the “lived experience of ‘the ordinary’ ”8, which Turner terms the “demotic turn.” — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity, 67

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces Graeme Turner’s ‘demotic turn’ — a key concept for understanding how fame migrated from achievement-based to ordinary-experience-based figures, a crucial precursor to internet celebrity.
• QUESTION: How exactly does the demotic turn differ from earlier instances of ordinary people gaining fame (e.g., reality TV, freak shows)? Worth chasing the theoretical lineage.
• XREF: connects to: Oprah’s format spawned a named cultural shift toward public emotional confession — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1479

Broader Connections

• Oprah’s format spawned a named cultural shift toward public emotional confession #exemplifies (0.75) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1479