(eer.uh.TAYN.munt)
n.
Entertainment and media spectacles that are both annoying and compulsively watchable.
Example Citation:
Jim Sinclair, assistant manager of the Minnesota State Fair, St. Paul, explained how to treat food and beverage operations as entertainment, during the Midwest Fairs Assn. meeting here.
He first stated that everything they do at the fair is entertainment. "It's a matter of perspective and presentation." He said the catch word is 'eatatainment' when combining experiences. "Irritainment is a word we've come up with that means something is so annoying, you can't stop watching it. Present all but that." A good example was the O.J. Simpson murder trial.
— Tom Powell, "Minnesota's Sinclair promotes food as new 'eatatainment'," Amusement Business, June 10, 2002
Earliest Citation:
Rather than let heated tempers rise, let's blow off steam on the Net.Scandal mailing list . . . If you've got a beef, this is a good place to beat it to death. The list is "dedicated to the pursuit of sloth and irritainment," it says, and of course, so are we.
— Angela Gunn, "Online Grapevine," Computer Shopper, August 1, 1995
Related Words:
Category:
New words. 2013.