Meaning of sublebrity | Babel Free

Definitions

Synonym of minor celebrity (“a celebrity of little importance or significance; someone famous for being famous”).

derogatory, informal

Examples

“After the screening, a large crowd filled the street outside the theater, playing spot-the-sublebrity with some of the film's prime characters, including Nirvana photographer Alice Wheeler and [Courtney] Love's estranged (and notoriously unhinged) father, Hank Harrison, who appears in the movie hawking his self-published anti-Courtney screed, Who Killed Kurt Cobain?”

“Of course, the ultimate celebrity of all time is still Marilyn Monroe. In the nearly fifty years since her death, hundreds of books have⟳ been written about her and her classic beauty still looks modern. I wonder⟳ how many of today's sub-lebrities will ever achieve⟳ that degree of long-term adulation?”

“It's been fourteen years of some serious chasing after stardom and just as seriously running away from it, but I haven't become⟳ a star. I might be on my way, though. As I write⟳ this book, I have⟳ secured myself a place⟳ as a sublebrity in the pantheon of America's queer and postmodern subcultures. That makes me happy.”

“But I could definitely consider⟳ a Shower List – a list of the biggest shower of horrors in any field at any given moment. First up, then: Britain's Ghastliest Financial Sublebrities. The idea is tangentially suggested – but of course – by the FT [Financial Times]'s exposé of the Presidents Club, a men-only charity party at which City chaps apparently seem to trade⟳ donations to the sick children of Great Ormond Street Hospital for the chance to sexually harass the female help⟳.”

CEFR level