Tiger Woods in November 2009.
Mark Dadswell/Getty Images Sport

Tiger Woods, seen here in Australia in November 2009, is not really what this is all about.

One of the challenges of covering popular culture is that when something becomes dominant enough in the spaces where popular culture is often found — television, sites that might normally cover entertainment news, and so forth — it's extremely difficult to pretend it's not there, as much as you might prefer to.