There Went the Neighborhood

Quote:  "As recently as the seventies, magazines all about celebrities were beneath contempt for respectable people, a small, nearly invisible media ghetto — or, rather, media trailer park. "  Kurt Anderson in New York Magazine.

Figure of Speech:  metanoia (met-an-OI-a), the self-correction.

The celebrity era is finally coming to a sad, liposucked end, according to Anderson, who notes that fewer Americans watched the Oscars and Grammys this year, and that the major fan mags are hurting.

He is old enough to recall the years B.C. (Before Celebrity), when most real people actually didn’t care what the fake ones were doing.  Anderson emphasizes the point by topping off his sentence with a metanoia ("change of heart"), a faintly ironic figure that corrects an earlier phrase to make a stronger point.  It’s a great way to spruce up a cliché like "media ghetto."

Snappy Answer:  "That was before Paris Hilton got into video performance art."