Goodbye Oprah, and good riddance

Rousseau’s most successful contemporary heir is Oprah Winfrey. Her entire brand is built around a cult of authenticity through therapeutic self-disclosure and promiscuous emotionality.

That's from a column I wrote for Mediaite last year when Kitty Kelly's memoir about Oprah came out. I didn't like Oprah then, I like her less today, and I'm glad she's gone. She's basically a cult-leader who  has had a horrible impact on the publishing industry, helping transform literature into a form of talk therapy while becoming so influential the entire book business is terrified of her. She celebrates "personal authenticity" while serving as an exemplar of the worst forms of ultra-conspicuous shop therapy.  Perhaps worst of all, she went into business with Playboy Bunny-turned anti-vaccine lunatic Jenny McCarthy.

If there is a person who has made more money and become more famous peddling a more perverse ideology to Americans than Oprah, I can't think of who it might be.