Your Media Label of the Year is deliciously microwaveable
By all accounts, Constance Weldon led a long and notable life as a respected musician, joining the Boston Pops in 1955 as the first woman to play the tuba in a major American orchestra, but it apparently wasn’t until she died in September at 88 that she became ... wait for it ... Pioneering Tuba Virtuoso Constance Weldon.
God bless and RIP Constance, whose memory I deploy here to reintroduce a decades long and slightly morbid fascination with media labels, which amounts more or less to still further proof that I have absolutely, positively nothing to do.
Media labels have likely been around since the birth of media, but I didn’t much notice until James Taylor, who wrote songs and sang them, became Singer Songwriter James Taylor. The media loves to tag people in lieu of repeatedly explaining them, so when poor Elian Gonzalez escaped from Cuba on a raft that reached Florida that time, he wasn’t on American soil a week until he became Cuban Raft Boy Elian Gonzalez.
And while the media technique you are currently experiencing is often called “Over-explaining the Premise,” Google Cuban raft boy and see what comes up. As this particular media reflex has proliferated through the years, some labels have become remarkably elaborate — Supreme Court Justice and Unrelenting Trailblazer for Gender Equity Ruth Bader Ginsburg; some hyper descriptive — Drug Crazed Prostitute Turned Pick Ax Murderer Karla Faye Tucker; while others have
remained so basic that they persist without even being ascribed to anyone in particular – Harmless Old Codger.
I’ll take it if no one’s using it. But this being December, it’s probably time to unveil our Media Label of the Year, which we do annually except in years when we completely forget about it (most).
Plenty of notables are in hot contention, including Divisive Whistleblower, of which there were many in 2020. The problem with Divisive Whistleblower is that it leans toward the redundant. Disgraced Hollywood Kingmaker had a good run in 2020 thanks to Harvey Weinstein. Oddly enough, “disgraced,” has an honored place in label construction, turning up with great reliability. You don’t even have to be a celebrity to be disgraced. Disgraced Uniontown Funeral Home Director Stephen Kezmarsky proved as much on his way to getting eight years in prison for ripping off elderly customers. Disgraced labels might have hit their rhetorical peak in 2018 when Papa John’s founder John Schnatter had to wear Disgraced
Pizza Pusher after resigning for using a racial slur during sensitivity training.
Shameless Trump Sycophant became a ubiquitous label in 2020, but its effectiveness was diluted by the fact that it applied to too many lickspittles. Conspiracy Theorist, another worthy construction, suffered a similar fate because conspiracy theorists were everywhere from the radio to the Oval Office. The same problem somehow affixed itself to Satanic Pedophile Globalist.
No such affliction befell the New York Post invention, Alleged Jeffrey Epstein Madam, as that applied specifically to Ghislaine Maxwell, currently negotiating a $28.5 million bail arrangement while she awaits trial for sex trafficking and perjury.
My best attempt in 2020 at a media label I thought could stick was Last Of The Red Hot Presidential Psycho-Litigants Rudy Giuliani, but similar constructions sprang up coast to coast as Rudy did his No Redemption Tour trying to overturn the election. Worse, in the process, he gathered around him additional psycho-litigants such as Unhinged Conspiracy Theorist Sidney Powell and Alleged Voter Fraud Witness Mellissa “I Wasn’t Drunk!” Carone.
But let’s crown our 2020 Media Label of the Year and remember, should our winner for any reason be unable to execute its duties (snort!), our 2019 winner (unless we forgot) will assume the title, so say hello to our defending champion, Stripper Turned Pharma Executive Sunrise Lee.
Sunrise rose to prominence during the Florida bribery trial of pharmaceutical executives accused of using some dodgy tactics to facilitate the distribution of their fentanyl spray. They were asked to explain how she became Regional Sales Director Sunrise Lee when her previous experience was allegedly running an escort service. Lap dances were mentioned.
Our 2020 runner-up is a media label with suspicious New York Post fingerprints: Albany Based Sex Cult Leader Keith Allen Raniere, sentenced to 120 years in October for sex trafficking in an elaborate plot behind the marketing company NXIVM.
And our 2020 Media Label of the Year is Hot Pocket Heiress Michelle Janavs, who despite being in line to inherit the microwaveable snacks fortune, pleaded guilty to paying some $300,000 to have a proctor correct her daughter’s entrance exams and attempt to snare an athletic scholarship from the University of South Carolina. She was sentenced to five months.
Apparently there aren’t enough frozen ham and cheddar wraps on this Earth to ensure her daughter’s success. I wouldn’t worry though. There’s always Controversial Bachelorette Contestant.