At any given time Americans are given the opportunity to make something "popular." The American adage is to say that we as "the people" can make or break something or someone's career.
Take, for example, ShamWow. The short but absolutely popular career of this artificial product-picker-upper only lasted until its abilities were proved otherwise -- false. This magic piece of cloth could not really hold irrational amounts of liquids and really couldn't even pick up much of anything.
