The celebrity fame machine has changed. 'Who? Weeklys' hosts map the new rules

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Set us as preferred “Crunch, crunch.”If the above sounds familiar, then you might already be a Wholigan — someone who routinely listens to the long-running celebrity podcast “Who? Weekly.” Part of the fun of listening to the thrice-weekly show (one being for Patreon members), aside from its hosts contextualizing a dizzying array of tabloid headlines, is learning its lexicon.For example, “Crunch, Crunch” spoofs a bit of sponsored content the pop singer Bebe Rexha did for Lay’s Potato Chips in 2019.

Other popular phrases unique to the Who-verse: “Good form, Bella Thorne.” “Scar-Jo Yummy Pop.”Launched in 2016 by pop culture journalists Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber, “Who? Weekly” eagerly mines the growing world of lower-tier celebrity, with the two hosts categorizing trending names under two main umbrellas: the fame-hungry “Whos” (influencers, reality stars, a pre-royal Meghan Markle) and the instantly recognizable, likely critically acclaimed “Thems” (Tom Cruise, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé).Rounding out the paradigm are the “Nahs,” or folks who aren’t well known enough to claim “Who” status.On the Shelf "I Want to Be Famous: When Everybody and Nobody Is a Celebrity" By Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber Crown, $33If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.“We came of age reading all the [gossip] bloggers, from Perez Hilton to Liz Smith,” Weber tells The Times of why she and Finger originally started “Who? Weekly,” which technically began as a newsletter before it morphed into a podcast.Finger also cites influence from “Oh No They Didn’t,” a 2000s-era LiveJournal page that aggregated celebrity headlines and invited users to comment (kind of like a proto-Subreddit).

“You read the story just...