Because hotness is a vapid, ill-considered cheat so you don't have to discuss, think about, or take a position regarding the quality of anything. "You know what's hot? Twilight!" "Okay, but...is it good?" "Not the point! Not the point! Read these 1000 words on why it's hot!"Hottest Baby? Is hottest baby thirsty? I've got just the thing.
Consider the Rolling Stone ["hot"] list. Barack Obama is hot; so is Leighton Meester from Gossip Girl. The sport of winching is hot; so is genuinely brilliant musician Bon Iver.
The closest I can come to explaining what "hot" is supposed to mean in this context is something like: "Things you have already heard of, or things that everyone else has heard of except for you, and if anyone finds out you haven't heard of them, they'll make fun of you, so listen carefully."...
If you wander through the recent news listings looking for the word "Hottest," you will see exactly what I mean. As of this writing, the results include Lonely Planet's possible endangering of the Bay Of Fires by naming it the "Hottest Travel Destination" of the year; a discussion of the continuing hotness of the Wii; and plenty of coverage of the aforementioned Suri Cruise being named the Forbes "Hottest Tot."
That's right: Hottest Baby.
I think Holmes should simmer down. There's a benefit to labeling things hot. It tells you to move on to something else, something newer and hipper or -- if you hate hipness even more than hotness -- to whatever it is you actually like as a matter of personal taste -- if you still have any. If you don't. Get some. It's hot.
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States like Wyoming, Montana and Idaho exist because the people who choose to live there got off the "what's hot" never-really-grew-up-out-of-high-school-insecurities-for-life carousel taht gives so many pitiful lives a reason to exist.
When it spread into the politics of who is governing this country, we've hit bottom.
bon iver is good!
Althouse is hot on Bloggingheads...here, she's Wisconsin cozy!
I used to be called 'gas giant' thinking that made me hot, but it had...another meaning!
Guess what! Linda has a fever. And the only prescription.....
Do you know what's hot? Mushroom soup, that's what.
the Forbes "Hottest Tot."
Or Hottentot?
"When it spread into the politics of who is governing this country, we've hit bottom."
I forced myself to read every single comment at the Roger Ebert blog that the NPR piece linked to, and when someone rightly pointed out that Obama effortlessly used the shallow celeb-obsessed media to gain gain votes, Ebert called him a "troll" because every thinking person knew that Palin was clearly "the CelebCult candidate."
At a loss for words here. I read crappy celeb blogs endlessly during the election in an attempt to escape the news, and all of them, ALL of them, treated her like an inbred mouth-breather. Does Ebert actually look at the stuff he whines about, or is this how he thinks a candidate is endorsed?
I began a special hatred against Ebert several years ago when he gave an extremely positive review to "Hackers." Anybody who liked that cinematic turd no longer has the right to share their opinions with the public.
I would welcome a moratorium on the words "hot" and "awesome."
Before Holmes simmers down, she ought to do something about that profound lack of hotness she herself inhabits.
Really, you can't do a better job of making these things up.
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