the media-culture disconnect

Gawker is already snarking about Michael Phelps, natch (with help from those who know Phelps).

That was fast! Michael Phelps was a rocking gold-medal winner, then a record-breaking champion athletic God, then the $100 million endorsement kingpin, then a celebrity sex symbol. The whole process took maybe a week. Now? …

Bloggers aren’t the only ones slamming Phelps in public. Here’s the stone-cold way fellow 2008 Olympian swimmer Amanda Beard reacted to rumors that she hooked up with him:

“Eww, that’s nasty… I have never, ever hooked up with Michael Phelps,” Beard said …

Meanwhile, the dorky, unsophisticated TV-viewing audience loves him:

The most jaw-dropping statistic: The night Michael Phelps won his eighth gold medal was the most viewed Saturday night program (31.1 million) on NBC since 1990. The night peaked at 39.9 million viewers during the 4 X 100 medley relay. NBC promised advertisers a 14.5 primetime rating, according to SportsBusiness Journal’s John Ourand. It will get that even with the usual second-week tune-out.

Who doesn’t love a winner?

Moe, that’s who—that S.I. cover is such a retread, she says, missing the point: that normal people (that is: people who don’t obsessively read Gawker in order to confirm that they’re right to envy and hate anyone who is successful) love winners…at least for a while.