O.J. Simpson and America’s ‘Apology Culture’

For the past 21 years, Ron Nief of Beloit College has released an annual “Mindset List,” a dismaying set of assertions meant to remind professors that their new freshmen have come of age in the historical blink of an eye and possess no memory of the events and eras that middle-aged instructors take for granted. Among the gems on the most recent version are the pronouncements that, for the incoming class, “outer space has never been without human habitation,” “Robert Downey Jr. has always been the sober Iron Man,” and “Calcutta has always been Kolkata.” Yet the most striking claim on the 2018 list has to do not with the unremembered past but with a cultural sensation that has remained oddly relevant despite its age. “Investigative specials examining the O. J. Simpson case,” Nief writes, “have been on TV annually since [the class of 2022’s] birth.” In other words, while my students and I may not have as shared a frame of reference as we once did, it looks very much like we will continue to have The Juice.

That Americans young and old remain intrigued by the saga of one Orenthal James Simpson is a point largely beyond argument, but the numbers provide some helpful quantification nonetheless. In 2016, the FX production The People v. O. J. Simpson averaged 7.7 million viewers in the important “live plus seven-day” ratings, finishing the year as cable television’s most-watched new show and losing the overall race only because The Walking Dead had not yet decomposed into unwatchability. Later that year, ESPN’s five-part documentary O. J.: Made in America did almost as well, reaching 3.4 million viewers on the night of its premiere — a serious number in an age of fragmented audiences — and going on to claim millions of other eyeballs in the following weeks. Written accounts of Simpson (a “one-man book industry,” according to Literary Hub) have sold briskly in recent years, with Bustle, Vogue, Goodreads, and other sites featuring lists of “must-reads” to accompany the O. J. television renaissance. (Renewed interest in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Run of His Life alone has likely financed another full decade of obnoxious Supreme Court commentary.) Perhaps most remarkable of all, Simpson’s decision to join Twitter a mere two weeks ago has already born the fruit of 820,000 followers, more than Julián Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, and Bill de Blasio combined. O. J. Simpson for president in 2020? Why not? The people are clearly listening.

About the Author

Graham Hillard

Graham Hillard is a former English professor and the TV critic for the Washington Examiner magazine.

For the past 21 years, Ron Nief of Beloit College has released an annual “Mindset List,” a dismaying set of assertions meant to remind professors that their new freshmen have come of age in the historical blink of an eye and possess no memory of the events and eras that middle-aged instructors take for granted. Among the gems on the most recent version are the pronouncements that, for the incoming class, “outer space has never been without human habitation,” “Robert Downey Jr. has always been the sober Iron Man,” and “Calcutta has always been Kolkata.” Yet the most striking claim on the 2018 list has to do not with the unremembered past but with a cultural sensation that has remained oddly relevant despite its age. “Investigative specials examining the O. J. Simpson case,” Nief writes, “have been on TV annually since [the class of 2022’s] birth.” In other words, while my students and I may not have as shared a frame of reference as we once did, it looks very much like we will continue to have The Juice.

That Americans young and old remain intrigued by the saga of one Orenthal James Simpson is a point largely beyond argument, but the numbers provide some helpful quantification nonetheless. In 2016, the FX production The People v. O. J. Simpson averaged 7.7 million viewers in the important “live plus seven-day” ratings, finishing the year as cable television’s most-watched new show and losing the overall race only because The Walking Dead had not yet decomposed into unwatchability. Later that year, ESPN’s five-part documentary O. J.: Made in America did almost as well, reaching 3.4 million viewers on the night of its premiere — a serious number in an age of fragmented audiences — and going on to claim millions of other eyeballs in the following weeks. Written accounts of Simpson (a “one-man book industry,” according to Literary Hub) have sold briskly in recent years, with Bustle, Vogue, Goodreads, and other sites featuring lists of “must-reads” to accompany the O. J. television renaissance. (Renewed interest in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Run of His Life alone has likely financed another full decade of obnoxious Supreme Court commentary.) Perhaps most remarkable of all, Simpson’s decision to join Twitter a mere two weeks ago has already born the fruit of 820,000 followers, more than Julián Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, and Bill de Blasio combined. O. J. Simpson for president in 2020? Why not? The people are clearly listening.