ABC and Merry Miller are idyuts, true true true
Have you seen Merry Miller's shockingly atrocious debut as a talking head on ABC's What's the Buzz? In what's possibly the most awkward interview since, I dunno, Cheney admitted he shot a dude in the face, Miller asks actress Holly Hunter a series of inane non sequitur questions before a) squinting at the teleprompter, b) giving viewers the wrong air date for Hunter's new show, and then c) directing the audience to nbc.com -- awkward, Miller's show being on ABC and all. Various online videos of the interview have received over a million views.
But that's not the real tragedy. In a follow-up interview on What's the Buzz, in which she attempts to explain what went wrong, Miller says that while the videos of her performance embarrass her, all they really prove is -- and this is a direct quote -- "now I just proved that wow, people really do want to see what's on the internet more than anyone knew, including myself. It's a living case study."
She followed that blazingly moronic and out-of-touch statement with: "It's really proven the power of YouTube, that anybody can go to sleep and wake up famous."
Wow. Really? You think YouTube wasn't recognized as a cultural arbiter before you came along?
And 'lest you think that the misunderstanding of the situation is Miller's alone, during the Miller interview ABC ran taglines at the bottom of the screen that read "viral video star" and "internet sensation." The host interviewing her, Rob Simmelkjaer, seems equally clueless when he acknowledges her Internet celebrity as a positive thing.
And that's the tragedy. Miller's celebrity isn't positive, no matter how much she or ABC tries to spin it. Her appearance was a series of simple mistakes, good for a laugh. But by conflating notoriety for celebrity, ABC reveals they're just as out-of-touch as Miller. As Miller herself would say, "true, true, true."
p.s. ABC: Please fix your web site so that it doesn't auto-refresh every seven minutes. 'Cause when I try to watch the 10-minute Miller interview follow-up, guess what? Exactly. And then the 30-second pre-roll loads again. And guess what? Exactly. That's annoying. And bad design. Did I mention annoying?
