Thursday, October 23, 2008

Britney Spears' Song Womanizer Proves We Love Celebrity Comebacks

Our celebrity-enamored culture loves a celebrity meltdown, and a good comeback story.

When you combine the two, you get what I call the: Mike Tyson Effect: Past outbursts and tantrums raise your star power because AmerIcans are quick to forgive,and they're also eagerly anticipating your next meltdown. Look at Britney Spears, who topped Billboard sales this week for the first time since 1999.

The four prominent examples of the Mike Tyson Effect.

1.Mike Tyson: The original:  No other figure in sports history has the rap sheet of this former heavy. A rape conviction sent him to prison for three years and when he returned for his first fight against Peter McNeeley, the fight broke Pay Per View records and grossed $96 million. He went on to challenge Evander Holyfield for the heavyweight title, but was disqualified for biting off a piece of Holyfield's ear.

Since his loss to Holyfield, Tyson has endured a series of failures, including a loss to Lennox Lewis . His out of ring escapades include throwing glass at a cameraman, filing for bankruptcy, covering his face with tatoos,and who could forget when he warned Lennox Lewis"I want your heart and I want to eat your children."

2.Britney Spears:The most recent example of the Mike Tyson effect is Spears, who spent the past three years in the headlines for all the wrong reasons: visiting rehab, suffering through a messy divorce, shaving her head and attacking cars with umbrellas. Now, she's back on top of the music charts with her hit single "Womanizer." 

3. Paris Hilton: Considered an "overnight" celebrity, Hliton's checkered past includes a sex-tape scandal and a prison sentence that was reduced because of her celebrity status. She returned to the spotlight with a video on funnyordie.com,  where she offered a sarcastic response to John McCain's comparison of her celebrity status to Barack Obama's.

4.Tom Cruise: Tom lost his marbles about four years ago, during an appearance on Oprah. He made a complete fool of himself by jumping on her couch and screaming about his love for Katy Holmes. During an interview on the Today Show, Cruise lectured Matt Lauer about the dangers of prescription drugs and criticized Brooke Shields for using anti-depressants for postpartum depression. His odd marriage with Katy Holmes and his lectures about Scientology have turned some fans away, but he's still one of the top-paid actors in Hollywood.

What's odd about our culture is that we're much more willing to forgive strangers such as sports figures and movie stars and give them second and and even third chances to regain our approval.However, in many cases, we're unwilling to forgive a restaurant for a bad meal or a business that disappoints us with sub par service or a friend who lets us down. That's why every business should protect their reputation online and in other media, because customers won't be as forgiving.

Here is one of Tyson's classic interview moments.

By Matt O'Hern at 02:53 PM | Comments (1)

(1) Thoughts on Britney Spears' Song Womanizer Proves We Love Celebrity Comebacks

This article is complete bull@$#.

The number of celebrities who fall and are not welcomed back heavily outweigh the ones who do have successful comebacks. That restaurant that gives a bad meal is not criticized more than the celebrities who fall and never get back up.

The ONLY reason why certain celebrities have successful comebacks is because they are talented enough to overcome whatever it is that caused people to discredit their talent to begin with.

Paris Hilton doesn't belong on that list at all because she was never up to begin with. Even in that McCain response video, she was still down...we just lowered ourselves to laugh with her.

Comments by Jake : Friday, October 24, 2008 at 04:47 PM

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