Andre Gray)

A lot has been written in the past months regarding the events of Nov. 7, 2014, when on the second floor of the Oprah Winfrey Network office on Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles, Oprah Winfrey disappeared in a tornado of light. Astrophysicists, politicians, futurists and religious scholars have all tried to make sense of what exactly happened—how, why, and where (if anywhere) the famous talk show host went. 

On the science and reasoning side of things, we know little more now than we did then. The elite team based out of Caltech assigned to investigating the “O Shift”, or to most, simply, “O”, are sticking to a fairly speculative hypothesis: At approximately 11 a.m. PST, compelled by mysterious quantum forces, Oprah Winfrey transcended our three-dimensional space to become, it would seem, some kind of five-dimensional entity. 

Now, while I stress “speculative,” I don’t think there’s a better explanation. And as more detailed data comes in about the electromagnetic after-tremors that continue to emanate from the building, I believe this theory will likely be proven correct. 

What makes me so sure? I’m certainly not a theoretical physicist, or applied mathematician, and have no scientific logic to back my claim. Well, would it be too outlandish of me to say that I had a feeling? That somehow, in some mental back channel, I saw it coming? Maybe not exactly the whole trans-dimensional business, but some sort of Oprah-centric evolutionary phenomenon?

Hear an ol' journalist out...

Just hours before the shift, "Oprah.com" released the latest (and I suppose now, last) installment of the annual “List of Oprah’s Favorite Things”, an ad piece designed for luxurious holiday shopping. In terms of shameless marketing and consumerism ad absurdum, the list is a tour de force, outdoing its own ludicrosity with every new edition. This year, the compilation came in at a whopping 72 items, from golden, "Beats by Dre" headphones, to $55 key rings, to a holiday candle set, to smoked salmon imported from Norway. 

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Maybe 95 Protestant Theses – 10 Commandments – 4 Noble Truths – 5 Pillars of Islam - 4 Hindu Objectives of Human Life = 72 Favorite Things? 

Because when you think about it, Oprah’s become a sort of religion, hasn’t she? Her life has been characterized by a tireless seeking to expand her reach and influence. Every product, every interview, every book fuels the distension not just commercially, but metaphysically too.

Over time she's advanced, metamorphosing from TV show host, to celebrity, to magazine, to network, to brand of chai, to sheer archetypal icon, constantly extending and redefining what it means exactly to be, to encompass, “Oprah.”

I’ve always regarded her as the first true case of what I'm calling “personal corporatehood”, in which a single individual suddenly sprouts into this capitalist hybrid, a constitution of many branded, packaged selves, each on the fringe of human.

Where once there was a person, now there's an idea—a lucrative, marketable idea, free from the confines of a bodily form.

As I read over this list of favorites again (lemongrass Body Butter, hypoallergenic dog bed), I ask myself: Wasn’t it just a matter of time before Oprah had infected everything? Permeated every quantum fiber of media, culture—reality itself? 

So no, I’m not too surprised that Oprah has abstracted into an unperceivable 5th dimension, where she looks over us at every moment of time that will ever be, our iterated universe her ultimate, cosmic list of favorite things. To me, it seems like it was, simply, the next logical step in her career. 

Read Oprah's Favorite Things 2014 here.