Oprah, Meghan, Harry, Pseudo-Events, and a Quick Fix to Boredom
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European journal of American studies
17-4 | 2022
The Boredoms of Late Modernity
Oprah, Meghan, Harry, Pseudo-Events, and a Quick
Fix to Boredom
Łukasz Muniowski
Electronic version
URL: https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/19125
DOI: 10.4000/ejas.19125
ISSN: 1991-9336
Publisher
European Association for American Studies
Electronic reference
Łukasz Muniowski, “Oprah, Meghan, Harry, Pseudo-Events, and a Quick Fix to Boredom”, European
journal of American studies [Online], 17-4 | 2022, Online since 26 December 2022, connection on 16
January 2023. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/ejas/19125 ; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/ejas.
19125
This text was automatically generated on 16 January 2023.
Creative Commons - Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International - CC BY-NC 4.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/Oprah, Meghan, Harry, Pseudo-Events, and a Quick Fix to Boredom 1
Oprah, Meghan, Harry, Pseudo-
Events, and a Quick Fix to Boredom
Łukasz Muniowski
1. Introduction
1 In this article, I want to discuss the Oprah with Meghan and Harry television special,
which was prerecorded and aired globally in March of 2021. Without getting too much
into its contents, I intend to show why an interview with two former royals, conducted
by a famous media personality, is such an important cultural (pseudo-)event that its
overall dullness, the inherent boredom of three people talking about distant, mostly
irrelevant issues, stays hidden from the viewers. A staggering number of 17.1 million
people in the US tuned in to watch it on March 7, 2021, its original air date. John Koblin
describes the number as disappointing, considering that the “special aired after days of
anticipatory coverage hinting at what the couple might reveal about their experiences
with the royal family and their decision to leave the palace behind.” In my analysis of
the way that the television special was advertised and presented, I want to highlight
the boredom that the media and marketing machines try to fight by creating, elevating,
and investing in such happenings. While the fight turns out to be in vain as boredom is
contested with even more boredom, a lack of proper solutions fuels this cycle of
futility. In agreement with Patricia Meyers Sparks’s statement that “boredom,
examined, characteristically appears to mean something beyond itself” (x), I want to
point out how the fear of boredom fuels the creation of programs that lead to the
creation of further programs and news stories, allowing the media to fill the news cycle
with various offspring of the main idea.
2 The interview itself, carrying no important message and devoid of any deep meaning, is
not an occurrence in need of mediation but a product itself, occurring because of the
fear that the viewer might experience boredom. That is why while it would be tempting
to categorize it as another instance of the spectacle, as understood by Guy Debord
(1967), the fact that it was manufactured in order to be mediated and did not occur on
European journal of American studies, 17-4 | 2022Oprah, Meghan, Harry, Pseudo-Events, and a Quick Fix to Boredom 2
its own, and the media recognized that its overall dullness could be compensated for
only by proper packaging and marketing, prevents me from doing so. Instead, I intend
to use Boorstin’s concept of the pseudo-event, which is inherently American, just like
the television special that I discuss here. Oprah with Meghan and Harry is an extension of
the cultural transformation that has been going on since the nineteenth century and
resulted in the creation of television specials of questionable value and quality. David P.
Marshall connects the two, stating that “while the nineteenth century produced a
system of visibility that was dependent on the media technology of print, the twentieth
century developed new systems of visibility through the media of radio, film, and
television that produced corresponding mediatized identities” (17). These were made
possible by the American media system, interested in covering and presenting powerful
and influential individualities, regardless of how they have gained that power and how
they are using their influences. As Teresa Keller observes, “in the United States, our
basic philosophy is that if we err, we err on the side of freedom. Some television is
trash, but we just have to grin and bear it” (204). My intention is not to question the
quality of today’s television but to trace the historical developments and the way they
were influenced by boredom.
3 I will start with the creation of pseudo-events and the boredom––or rather the fear of
it––that brought them into existence. Even though Boorstin coined the term in 1961, in
response to the changing media landscape, it is still applicable today, as I intend to
prove in this article. After providing the historical background, I will then write about
the celebrity as a human pseudo-event. My focus will not fall on Meghan or Harry but
on Oprah Winfrey, who conducted the interview and whose media company produced
the interview. By doing that I will highlight another issue central to the contemporary
media by trying to answer the question why the interviewer is just as important as the
people who are interviewed and how it is supposed to guarantee that the interview
itself will not be boring. By asking the right questions, Oprah, a talk show veteran of
over thirty years, was supposed to make the interview engaging for viewers not
familiar with the situation of the Duke of Sussex and his wife. In agreement with the
paradoxical logic of celebrity hosts, if Oprah was speaking with them, they must be
worthy of the viewers’ attention.
2. Pseudo-Events: Interviews and Talk Shows
4 The creation of the television special and the interest that it aroused––49.1 million
viewers by March 9, 2021 (Pelski)––would not have been possible without the creation
of mass society. Edward Shils identifies the process as determined by the move from
authority to individuality, with more rights allowed to the latter (2). The move to mass
society allowed the citizens more freedom, which is essential in making important life
choices. Shils points out that “mass society is an industrial society” (2), which means it
relies on producing goods––the basis of the industry’s existence. For production to
make sense though, consumption becomes necessary, putting the consumer in the
center of the economy. The reliance on constant production and instant consumption,
instead of the overall quality of the product, as well as its longevity, leads to
momentary gratification. The products appear on and disappear from the market with
the same velocity, giving the consumers the impression that their decisions matter. 1
European journal of American studies, 17-4 | 2022Oprah, Meghan, Harry, Pseudo-Events, and a Quick Fix to Boredom 3
5 Hannah Arendt writes that “mass society and mass culture are interrelated
phenomena” (43). In her essay “Society and Culture,” she attributes the creation of
mass culture to the creation of mass society, basing the division between culture and
mass culture on consumption. While society created culture to turn its products into
commodities, mass society consumes them in search of instant entertainment, the
same way it reached for “any other consumer goods” (46). This process occurrs in what
Arendt refers to as “leftover time... after labor and sleep have received their due” (47).
While still biological and “natural,” this vacant time is filled with easy-to-digest
products, which “disappear in consumption” (48), fueling the creation of newer
commodities to meet the demands of the consumer society. With more time available
for idleness, one of the most urgent decisions of modern subjects was where to allocate
the amount of time possible for leisure, making it either meaningful or not. There is no
free time without labor. As Theodor Adorno points out, “free time is shackled to its
opposite” (187), and “free time must not resemble work in any way whatsoever, in
order, presumably, that one can work all the more effectively afterwards” (190). One of
the activities made available due to the superfluous amount of free time is watching
television, which Lars Svendsen directly connects with boredom:
People who watch TV four hours a day will not necessarily feel or admit that they
are bored, but why else should they spend 25 per cent of their waking hours in such
a way? Leisure naturally presents itself as an explanation, but leisure gives one a
great deal of superfluous time that has to be consumed in some way or other – and
few types of apparatus destroy time more efficiently than a TV. There is ultimately
hardly any other reason for watching TV for many hours an evening than to get rid
of time that is superfluous or disagreeable. (23)
6 The same link is established by Sherryl Wilson, who writes that “popular culture
becomes the antidote to a restless mobility, boredom and loneliness as individuals
engage in a perpetual search for an escape from a debilitating ennui of contemporary
life” (65).
7 The demand for television may be equaled with what Boorstin calls the “demand for
illusions” (9). What the viewers are looking for in their television programs is a sense of
vacancy, allowing them to simply forget about the limitations imposed on them by the
neoliberal economy and its social inequalities. The universal need for consumption is in
agreement with the democratic nature of the programming itself, which, in turn,
should serve as a unifying notion based on the familiarity of consumption. The
commonness of needs and desires, however, rarely serves as a bridge between social
groups or classes as some can afford to consume and others simply cannot. Yet, there is
another universal feeling, which predates consumption and also does not bring people
together but serves as the cause and reason for their actions. It functions as a common
enemy, which can be defeated with similar means, access to which is also based on
social and material position. That feeling is, naturally, boredom.
8 Similarly to mass consumption, “boredom is a universal experience” (Toohey 169).
People used various means to overcome it, but at least since the advent of modernity,
consumption has been one of the most common remedies to boredom. Today’s
consumerism does not revolve solely around material objects as with the rise of virtual
currency, streaming services, and online versions of video games or movies––just to
name a few technological developments––it becomes clear that one can also devour
entertainment without any tangible material existence. This mechanism, however, is
not unique to our era: it can be traced back to the beginnings of art, which brought
European journal of American studies, 17-4 | 2022Oprah, Meghan, Harry, Pseudo-Events, and a Quick Fix to Boredom 4
with itself emotions and meanings whose impact went beyond the “transmitters” that
were carrying it. As J. M. Bernstein points out:
Works of art are commodities just the same, indeed pure commodities since they
are valuable only to the extent that they can be exchanged. Works’ non-utility,
their ‘unsaleability’, is the hypocritical source of their value; the art market is pure
because unconstrained by need. The culture industry’s inversion of this is its
offering of culture goods, exhibitions or concerts on the television or radio, free of
charge, as a ‘public service’; in truth, the price for them has been long-since paid
for by the labouring masses. (10)
9 Yet, as interesting as the journey back in time to trace the beginnings of boredom
might turn out to be, taking into account the limitations of time, (writing) space, and
the subject matter of this article, I will not go back further than to 1848, which is when
the Associated Press was founded. It is precisely at this moment, according to that
Boorstin, that the news began to turn into a “salable commodity” (13), which was
possible thanks to the improvements made to the telegraph and the invention of the
rotary press, allowing for the news to “travel” fast and go to print at a similar speed.
10 This was also when newspapers went from simply retelling events to fighting for the
attention of the reader, which could be caught with “images of print, of men and
landscapes and events, of the voices of men and mobs” (Boorstin 13). Boorstin calls
these changes the Graphic Revolution, in which “vivid image came to overshadow pale
reality” (13). In other words, fiction overshadowed the truth when looking more
promising and was ingrained into the social fabric despite being false. No medium was
impacted by these changes more than television. Walter Cummins and George Gordon
write that “even if television were not the primary cause of change, it has served as the
messenger and supporter of ideas and movements,” both intentionally and
unintentionally (ix). It was instrumental for many social and cultural developments
that continue to shape our era.
11 The availability of television sped up the process of news reporting, and, as Boorstin
notices, soon “news gathering turned into news making” (14). This, in turn, influenced
the creation of pseudo-events, fabricated to fill up the news cycle. The main
characteristics of a pseudo-event are that it is not spontaneous but planned (1); that it
is produced for the sole purpose of being reported or reproduced (2), is open to
interpretation (3), and is a “self-fulfilling prophecy” (4) in the sense that it is
announced prior to its appearance (11–12). It is hard to treat pseudo-events as news,
precisely because of their pre-prepared nature. As observed by Boorstin: “the story
prepared ‘for future release’ acquires an authenticity that competes with that of the
actual occurrences on the scheduled date” (19). This means that, judging from almost
every news edition, a prerecorded event may be just as much newsworthy and may
seem as authentic as current events.
12 What is more, “pseudo-events spawn other pseudo-events in geometric progression” as
“pressures arise to produce other, derivative forms of pseudo-event which are more
fluid, more tantalizing, and more interestingly ambiguous” (Boorstin 33). This means
that such an occurrence may be recycled for a week or so, with media experts
discussing various moments from such an event, (presumably) adding context and
depth to selected elements of the show. This usually goes on until another story
appears or is created, only for the whole process to be repeated around a different
narrative. Such is the case with sports stories concerning whether a given player will
move to a different team or not, which reappear during every trade deadline. The
European journal of American studies, 17-4 | 2022Oprah, Meghan, Harry, Pseudo-Events, and a Quick Fix to Boredom 5
ability to come up with such news cycles time and time again is related not only to the
attractiveness of the occurrences at hand but also to the journalist telling the story. As
Boorstin points out, “the successful reporter is one who can find a story, even if there is
no earthquake or assassination or civil war.” “If he cannot find a story, then he must
make one––by the questions he asks of public figures,” he continues, summing up the
talk show formula (8).
13 Boorstin identifies the interview as one of the simplest, if not the most primitive,
pseudo-events. Rather than looking at the interview as a means of gathering
information or conducting methodological research, Boorstin is interested in the rise of
the figure of the contemporary newsman, which creates confusion as to “who is the
history, and who is the historian?” (30). Since the 1960s, the work of the reporter is no
longer based on simply relaying the facts but also on doing it in an entertaining way.
The stress on entertainment in the way news is conveyed leads to competition, which is
the basis of the free market economy. The reporters are “free to speculate on the facts,
to bring new facts into being.... Our ‘free market place of ideas’ is a place where people
are confronted by competing pseudo-events and are allowed to judge among them”
(Boorstin 35).
14 The rising popularity of interviews and interviewers gave birth to the talk show, a
television formula in which the guests talk with a new incarnation of the reporter––the
host. Wilson writes that talk shows escape categorization due to “the persona of the
host who facilitates the proceedings and the relationship they engender with their
studio guests and audiences” (17). This only furthers the notion that the host is more
important than the guests: the people tune in to hear the questions and the retorts
instead of actually learning something from or about the person invited to the show.
Most talk shows follow the same format, which “requires invited guests to disclose the
most intimate aspects of themselves, recalling past and present difficulties and
revealing often horrific life experiences to the camera, studio and home audiences for
close scrutiny and judgement” (2). One of the most prominent figures in talk show
history is Oprah Winfrey, who hosted The Oprah Winfrey Show for twenty-three seasons,
from September 1986 to May 2011. She achieved fame and wealth despite her difficult
beginnings. Nicole Aschoff writes that Winfrey is the embodiment of the American
Dream as she “presents her personal journey and metamorphosis from a poor little girl
in rural Mississippi to a billionaire prophet as a model for overcoming adversity” (80).
She has built her brand on talking with people about their problems and helping them
overcome their issues in front of cameras and studio audiences. As revered as Winfrey
is, it is particularly notable that she achieved such a position in the media landscape,
abolishing the divisions between highbrow and lowbrow entertainment.
3. Oprah: The Human Pseudo-Event
15 It is a common concept that one achieves almost universal recognition when one can be
referred to solely by her/his/their first name. “Oprah” is one of those people, and,
according to the title of the television special, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle should
be as well. It is, however, due to Winfrey’s name being put in front of the other two that
the viewer learns about the significance of the television special. This gives her power,
unachievable for either “Meghan” or “Harry,” painting them as add-ons to her show.
Even though Prince Harry is a royal and Markle a famous actress, it is the former talk
European journal of American studies, 17-4 | 2022Oprah, Meghan, Harry, Pseudo-Events, and a Quick Fix to Boredom 6
show host that emerges here as the central figure. It is Winfrey who is supposed to
guarantee authenticity and honesty due to the reputation that she has built through
the years.
16 The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have stepped down as senior members of the British
Royal Family, meaning they have given up all their official functions. By doing that,
they have renounced some of their power, but not all of it as they remain celebrities:
figures who are not considered to be culturally relevant, yet whose power cannot be
denied. As David P. Marshall points out, “celebrity has become a way to identify public
visibility but also underlines how that visibility itself is not an achievement or clear
accomplishment” (16). It is not, however, that celebrity is devoid of power, which is
also recognized by Marshall: “genealogically, there is a second element that links
celebrity to power: celebrity identifies a very elaborate and expanding discourse of
visibility and recognition. What is developed through celebrities is a rather new and
contemporary system of value” (17). In this case, the special was a way of sparking
interest in the production company of the interviewees, Archewell Productions, which
signed deals to produce content for Netflix and Spotify.
17 Barry Smart connects the rise of celebrity culture with the demand for illusions,
placing it historically after the First World War, when American soldiers returned
home from Europe and found themselves lost in everyday life after encountering the
horrors of war. This led to what Smart refers to as “celebrity-fabricating” by the film,
the radio, and the mass-circulating magazines (3). The process of fabrication is a direct
consequence of the Graphic Revolution which, as Boorstin points out, “gave us, among
other things, the means of fabricating well-knownness” (47). This led to the creation of
celebrities, whom Boorstin distinguishes from heroes, considered as such due to their
achievements. He writes that “the hero was a big man; the celebrity is a big name” (61).
The name then allowed for the creation of the brand myth, allowing celebrities to
become brands and sell products by pure association.
18 Winfrey is well aware of her status, using her influence to promote her most important
brand––herself, managing to connect conflicting discourses because of the impression
of authenticity that she so successfully projected in her talk shows and extended to her
magazine and production company. She turned her life story into a device of making
herself more familiar to her viewers, purposely becoming the central figure of the
show. Wilson writes that “all of the voices heard on the show, and the form that their
articulations take, are facilitated by and filtered through the persona of Oprah Winfrey,
whose own authority resides in her life experiences, her struggles to overcome
difficulties and in the notion of authenticity signaled through her practice of adopting
the confessional position” (157). Winfrey listens, inspires, and gives life advice. She is
now famous and wealthy, yet her rags-to-riches story allows Winfrey to position herself
as an authority figure and one of the people at the same time. Wilson writes that “the
Oprah as celebrity other is simultaneously Oprah as ‘one of us’ thus providing a bridge
between the audience and the stars, including Winfrey herself” (162). By becoming
familiar to the audience, she makes her story attainable, her life within reach, ignoring
the circumstances that stood behind her rise to fame. In Oprah’s story, the American
Dream is available for everyone: if one fails, it is because of not working hard enough or
doing things one is not supposed to do (Aschoff 100). The ultimate goal is happiness,
presumably well within reach of every viewer and member of the audience.
European journal of American studies, 17-4 | 2022Oprah, Meghan, Harry, Pseudo-Events, and a Quick Fix to Boredom 7
19 In her version of the American Dream, Oprah made generosity a central part of her
brand. Winfrey is famous for giving away things during her live shows as well as
building schools in the US and abroad through the Oprah Winfrey Foundation. She is
also a millionaire and the founder of Harpo Productions, her own media company. By
all accounts, she can be a role model, a label that she willingly took on and built her
brand around it. What made Oprah so successful was her personality, which Boorstin
equals with celebrity, calling the two synonyms (65). Celebrities do not perform any
vital social function; their existence is justified solely due to mass society’s need to be
entertained, meaning as long as they are entertaining, they are not replaced by another
fabricated well-known person. In order to remain that, they need to organize pseudo-
events to remain in the spotlight. This is exactly what Oprah does whenever she opens
a new school or conducts a new interview––everything is planned in advance, spawning
the creation of new pseudo-events, earning her the dubious status of a human pseudo-
event.
20 The same mechanism also applies to the television special, which was prepared by
Oprah’s media company. She has been friends with Markle, attending the 2018 Royal
Wedding as her guest, and later on, teamed up with Prince Harry to produce a program
for Apple TV+. The close ties with the Royals allowed her to prepare the program, but
more importantly, it was her exemplary reputation as a talk show host that made
Meghan and Harry decide to take part in the special. As Wilson points out, “talk shows
are cheap television, attract good viewing figures and represent a sound financial
proposition for producers” (19). Yet, Oprah’s special was far from “a sound financial
proposition” as CBS paid Harpo Productions around $7–9 million for exclusive rights to
the special in the US. They invested so much because Winfrey is a brand that
guarantees ratings, while her relationship with Markle made it certain that she and her
husband would be able to present their side of the story.
21 This, in turn, led to a boring, unrevealing special, which was discussed all over the
world due to unabated interest in the lives of celebrities. Because her talk show has
been on the air for 24 years, it is evident that Winfrey knew––and still knows––how to
produce gripping television, sticking to proven formulas. Elizabeth Legge writes that
“artistic techniques of boredom include repetition and postponement of a conclusion
or inconclusion” (96). That means that shows are prolonged or broken up by
commercial breaks in order for them to last longer, which oftentimes has the opposite
effect––the frustration with the length of a show/series leads to boredom, which
results in resignation. Repetition and postponement of conclusions are also the key
features of successful television programs as the first leads to the creation of
captivating formulas, which allow for better consumption of said programs, while the
postponement of conclusions allows the topic to be discussed on different platforms
until a new one appears. That is why Meghan and Harry’s reluctance to actually share
anything of essence despite the two-hour length of the interview, providing the media
with just enough talking points to continue discussing the program, and creating
various pseudo-events in the process, was in agreement with the expectations
regarding pseudo-events themselves.
22 Doreen St. Felix of the New Yorker called the 2021 television special “the instantly iconic
artifact of pop culture,” while also taking notice of how carefully, yet somewhat
strangely, the whole program was constructed. Understandably, the former Duke and
Duchess of Sussex picked Oprah to manage the two-hour special, which placed her in
European journal of American studies, 17-4 | 2022Oprah, Meghan, Harry, Pseudo-Events, and a Quick Fix to Boredom 8
the familiar role of the “celebrity other.” As Loren Glass observes in her discussion of
the recommendations from Oprah’s Book Club, “Oprah not only represented mass
cultural acclaim, her show also reinforced the association between such acclaim and
the predominantly female readership to which she catered” (53). In a similar way, the
special itself was directed at female viewers, discussing issues such as motherhood,
depression, and racism. Furthermore, a larger part of the interview involved just
Winfrey and Markle, with Prince Harry serving as an add-on even when the three were
holding a conversation. While commendable and refreshing, the female perspective has
been chosen to provide more talking points for pundits rather than to deepen social
awareness about the discussed issues. Motherhood, depression, and racism have been
covered numerous times in Oprah’s talk show as well as in the programs her company
produced. It is safe to say that she knows her public and knows how to address it.
4. Conclusion
23 Oprah’s rise to fame as well as the 2021 television special result from the fear of
boredom that fuels the creation of pseudo-events. In Winfrey’s case, that means
repeating the same, uninspired formulas over and over, during every similar event,
turning it, somewhat paradoxically, into a showcase of boredom. Oprah herself may be
characterized as a human pseudo-event because of her ability to produce such
occurrences one after another, an ability which she acquired through almost four
decades of work in the media. Pseudo-events are not spontaneous as they are produced
in advance and may be interpreted, reported on, or reproduced at will. Oprah with
Meghan and Harry television special is exactly that––a pseudo-event produced in the
middle of a global pandemic, as billions of people are living in fear of getting infected,
just to redirect their attention to something presumably more newsworthy, which,
nevertheless, does not influence their lives. The interview could have been a welcome
distraction from the tragedy of the everyday if it would be in fact its purpose. Instead,
for most viewers, it was impossible to relate to the revealing of personal issues of the
rich in a time when everyday activities, such as going to a store or walking the dog,
suddenly became life-threatening occurrences.
24 My intention was not to comment on the contents of the television special but rather to
highlight how it is another in a series of pseudo-events, created in response to
boredom, available to societies rich enough to afford leisure. It falls in line with Donald
Trump rallies, publication of some unearthed documents, or basically every event
concerning non-fungible tokens. Boorstin notices that “we are deceived and obstructed
by the very machines we make to enlarge our vision” (259), by devoting our attention
to pseudo-events, which are fabricated only to make us forget about our living
conditions and/or fuel our consumption. While the fact that Meghan Markle brought
up depression was important, as it started another public debate about mental health,
the interview itself was produced in the name of finding a quick fix for boredom, which
may creep at us at any time.
European journal of American studies, 17-4 | 2022Oprah, Meghan, Harry, Pseudo-Events, and a Quick Fix to Boredom 9 BIBLIOGRAPHY Adorno, Theodor. “Free Time.” The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, edited by J. M. Bernstein, Routledge, 2001, pp. 187–97. Arendt, Hannah. “Society and Culture.” Culture for the Millions? Mass Media in Modern Society, edited by Norman Jacobs, D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1961, pp. 43–52. Aschoff, Nicole. The New Prophets of Capital. Verso, 2015. Bernstein, J. M. “Introduction.” The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, by Theodore Adorno, edited by J. M. Bernstein, Routledge, 2001, pp. 1–28. Boorstin, Daniel J. The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America. Harper Colophon Books, 1961. Cummins, Walter, and George Gordon. Programming Our Lives: Television and American Identity. Praeger, 2006. Finkielsztein, Mariusz. “Consumer Boredom: Boredom as a Subliminal Mood of Consumer Capitalism.” Late Modern Boredom, special issue of European Journal of American Studies, vol. 17, no. 4, 2022. Glass, Loren. “Brand Names: A Brief History of Literary Celebrity.” A Companion to Celebrity, edited by David P. Marshall and Sean Redmond, Wiley, 2016, pp. 39–57. Keller, Teresa. “Trash TV.” Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 26, no. 4, 1993, pp. 195–206. Koblin, John. “Oprah, Meghan and Harry Draw 17.1 Million Viewers to CBS.” The New York Times, 8 Mar. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/08/business/media/oprah-winfrey-meghan- markle-prince-harry.html. Accessed 28 Feb. 2022. Legge, Elizabeth. “Boring Cool People: Some Cases of British Boredom.” Boredom Studies Reader: Frameworks and Perspectives, edited by Michael E. Gardiner and Julian Jason Haladyn, Routledge, 2017, pp. 88–106. Marshall, David P. “Introduction.” A Companion to Celebrity, edited by David P. Marshall and Sean Redmond, Wiley, 2016, pp. 15–20. Pelski, Denise. “Meghan Markle & Prince Harry’s Oprah Interview to Re-Air Friday As CBS Reschedules ‘MacGyver,’ ‘Magnum P.I.’ & ‘Blue Bloods’ Originals.” Deadline, 9 Mar. 2021, https:// deadline.com/2021/03/meghan-markle-prince-harry-oprah-interview-re-air-friday-cbs- reschedules-macgyver-magnum-p-i-blue-bloods-originals-1234710935/. Accessed 28 Feb. 2022. Shils, Edward. “Mass Society and Its Culture.” Culture for the Millions? Mass Media in Modern Society, edited by Norman Jacobs, D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1961, pp. 1–27. Smart, Barry. The Sport Star: Modern Sport Star and the Cultural Economy of Sporting Celebrity. Sage, 2005. Sparks, Patricia Meyer. Boredom: The Literary History of a State of Mind. The U of Chicago P, 1995. St. Felix, Doreen. “The Rigorous Empathy of ‘Oprah with Meghan and Harry.’” The New Yorker, 8 Mar. 2021, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-television/the-rigorous-empathy-of-oprah- with-meghan-and-harry. Accessed 28 Feb. 2022. Toohey, Peter. Boredom: A Lively History. Yale UP, 2011. Wilson, Sherryl. Oprah, Celebrity and the Formations of Self. Routledge, 2003. European journal of American studies, 17-4 | 2022
Oprah, Meghan, Harry, Pseudo-Events, and a Quick Fix to Boredom 10 NOTES 1. For an analysis of consumer boredom, see Mariusz Finkielsztein, “Consumer Boredom: Boredom as a Subliminal Mood of Consumer Capitalism” in this issue. ABSTRACTS The article uses the 2021 Oprah with Meghan and Harry television special as a case study to discuss pseudo-events and news cycles, which are represented as an antidote to boredom despite their lack of newsworthiness. I trace back today’s pseudo-events to the beginnings of the Graphic Revolution, during which news was transformed into a commodity, and its entertaining value gained major significance. As a result, the figure of the entertaining newsman has become more important than the relayed story. In response to the fear of boredom, which grips mass society, instead of only reporting current events, the media started making news, that is producing pseudo-events, which are planned and marketed. In order to explain this process, I discuss Oprah, a talk show giant, as a human pseudo-event and the main reason that 49.1 million watched the special. INDEX Keywords: celebrity, Oprah Winfrey, pseudo-events, Graphic Revolution AUTHOR ŁUKASZ MUNIOWSKI Łukasz Muniowski is an Assistant Professor at the University of Szczecin. He has published over a dozen of academic articles on various topics, including gentrification, geek culture, American literature, video games, and television series. He is the author of Three-Pointer! A 40-Year NBA History (McFarland, 2020) and co-editor (with Aldona Kobus) of Sex, Death and Resurrection in Altered Carbon: Essays on the Netflix Series (McFarland, 2020). In 2021, Lexington Books published his monograph Narrating the NBA: Cultural Representations of Leading NBA Players after the Michael Jordan Era. His newest book, Sixth Men: NBA History off the Bench was published by McFarland in 2021. European journal of American studies, 17-4 | 2022
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