Yesterday, you were starved of a routine and dazzling conceit. The specious but shimmering Golden Globes was pared down. Slim like a La Perla thong on Paris. Scant like reports of George Clooney’s personal life. Dull, hollow and dumpy like the inner (and outer) life of Kyle Sandilands.

Beloved Comrades of the Writers’ Guild continue their daring struggle. For ten weeks they’ve endorsed the victory of the proletariat, DVD residuals etc to explode into a nimbus of victory. With support from all sorts of class antagonists including Justin Timberlake and that uptight but kind-of-sexy chick from Desperate Housewives, the Globes shrank into a wan media conference.

“This just doesn’t feel right,” said an anonymous blonde charged with the responsibility of opening sad little envelopes. Assembled also-rans nodded and made that smug noise minor Hollywood liberals generally reserve for saving rainforests et al.

Immodest solidarity might have made many in the entertainment community feel swell. Presenters more accustomed to evaluating Britney’s Baby Fat seemed elated at the tension. And, I imagine, Our Cate was happy to receive this absent honour for her absent Godard poncing in I’m Not There.

Other parties were not so chuffed. A current editorial parlour game is to find a measure for financial loss. NBC lost gajillions in advertising. Tom, Thierry and Stella lost bajillions in frock flogging. Vendors of Bolivia’s finest marching powders are seriously down in this quarter.

There is, however, another substantial and enduring loss which has not yet been quantified. The Globes-Lite were a harbinger of something tragic.

This is the moment when celebrity was pwned. Or, to use the Marxist language of the Writers’ Guild, this is where the celebrity bourgeoisie has become its own grave digger.

Loathe them or really loathe them, awards ceremonies are a helluva paradigm. In a culture saturated with images of the famous, these are key rituals.

And now, the world has not turned on its axis because of too few whorish designer gowns or teary thanks to God. The lapse signified little to anyone save for those aforementioned pushers of drugs, frocks and product.

This pause occurred at a moment where our visual culture is critically saturated. We’ve gorged on the sugary sacrament for too many years. Starved of this season’s communion, I predict we’ll quickly lose our faith.