1997 — Jaymz Bee, Cocktail Parties for Dummies, John Wiley & Sons (1997), →ISBN, page 127:
Because their volume interjects such an overwhelming ambiance to the party, make sure that your entertainers are the right ones. You want entertainment, not irritainment.
Onstage, Mr. Monahan plays an electronic organ and singers render a variety of songs as bad lounge music. The pair calls the concept irritainment.
1999 — "A Familiar Rick is Back on the Air", Spokesman-Review, 24 October 1999:
His show is what the radio industry calls "hot talk," which means Emerson is controversial, often outrageous, and more oriented toward pop culture and sex than toward politics. He calls it "broadcast irritainment." It's a stream-of-consciousness, motor-mouth style that Emerson first perfected on KJRB-AM, way back in 1994.
2000 — "Fools Rush In", Chicago Tribune, 31 March 2000:
When people start talking about serving rotisserie chicken because it's "poultry in motion," it can only mean one thing: the International Save the Pun Foundation's Annual Punsters Dinner. Singer Gregg Opelka entertains with his revue "That's Puntertainment," or should that be "Irritainment"?
The Office, set in the Slough office of paper-goods manufacturer Wernham-Hogg, belongs to a burgeoning brand of television best called "irritainment," in that it makes you cringe as much as it makes you chuckle.
This series, which starts tonight at 9 on Channel 7, has the distinction of being "Ally McBeal" creator David E. Kelley's first foray into unscripted irritainment.
As for the TV talk shows featuring positive-spin pundits between patronising advertisements, they are classified as irritainment these days.
2009 — Billy Liggett, "Reality TV's hope", The Sanford Herald, 15 November 2009:
I’m so infuriated by most of reality TV that I don’t even watch it for irritainment (purposely watching bad shows because they’re so irritatingly bad, it makes them enjoyable).
Noun: "a media spectacle, particularly a scandal, that is simultaneously irritating and engrossing"
1998 — Lewis W. Diuguid, "Kindness carries an umbrella", The Kansas City Star, 11 August 1998:
But they can't turn away from this irritainment, because Starr and the media keep the soap opera going.
1998 — Lewis W. Diuguid, "Changing channels on scandal", The Kansas City Star, 26 September 1998:
Like others, I followed Clinton's apologies on TV and in print and laughed at the "I'm Sorry Chorus" from the also-unclean GOP choir. I've said it before: This is "irritainment" - a macabre mix of irritation and entertainment. The nastiness is a crime scene right in front of us.
