The more the merrier?

But it’s never been less of an honor to be nominated — and not just at the Oscars, where, for the second year in a row, the best picture category is padded out with 10 films rather than the previous five, including a few (“Toy Story 3,’’ “True Grit’’) that have to be considered long shots.

In the worlds of big-time entertainment, sports, and politics, competitions that should be at least somewhat exclusive have evolved into the equivalent of parties where no one is left off the guest list. It’s a curious thing. When it comes to the games kids play, we fume about the everybody-gets-a-trophy ethos. When it comes to education, we rail against grade inflation and “social promotion’’ for the sake of self-esteem. Then we shrug as those very same concepts take hold elsewhere in the culture.

Consider:

■ Starting in a couple of weeks, a whopping 68 teams will compete in the NCAA’s “March Madness’’ — the largest number in the tournament’s history — to be crowned the men’s national college basketball champion. Perhaps we should count ourselves lucky: There had been feverish talk of expanding even more, to 96 teams — a development that would have drastically cut into American productivity as skulls imploded in office pools across the country.

■ In January, when “American Idol’’ kicked off its 10th season — and its first without Simon Cowell, that merciless enforcer of standards — the show hosted 327 singers from regional auditions in the Hollywood round, twice as many as in previous years. “Idol’’ also expanded the universe of those eligible to compete by lowering the age limit to 15. Cowell will cast the net even wider in his new talent show, “The X Factor,’’ where contestants as young as 12 will be allowed to compete, down from 14 in the British version of the show.

■ The citizenry is bracing for that quadrennial outbreak of self-delusion known as the presidential campaign, in which a flotilla of candidates blithely offer themselves for election, undeterred by the fact that often the only person who thinks they are qualified to be president is the one staring back at them from the bathroom mirror.

■ Professional sports leagues have turned Darwinism on its head: not survival of the fittest but survival of pretty much everybody. In fact, it has gotten nearly impossible for pro teams not to make the playoffs.

The National Basketball Association put on an impressive show at this week’s All-Star game, but the skill on display only reminded fans that we are at the midpoint of a nearly pointless regular season, given that 16 out of the 30 NBA teams make it to the playoffs. Nor does the pulse exactly race during the regular season of the National Hockey League, where 16 out of 30 teams get to compete for the Stanley Cup. Apart from hyperventilating sports-radio callers, who can stay engaged for a long winter of watching hoops and hockey contests that mean virtually zilch?

The situation is not much better in the National Football League, where 12 of the 32 teams make the playoffs — an honor that was enjoyed this year by the Seattle Seahawks despite racking up a losing record. By comparison, Major League Baseball is a paragon of restraint, with only eight teams out of 30 making it to postseason play. But that could soon change: Team owners want to add more wild-card teams to the postseason mix, and MLB commissioner Bud Selig is receptive to the idea, saying last month: “I feel good about it.’’

Meanwhile, the criteria for admission to the Baseball Hall of Fame seem to get shakier each year. It was once possible to identify Hall of Fame-caliber players by using Justice Potter Stewart’s famous definition of pornography: You knew it when you saw it. But now, stat geeks construct arcane arguments that build a case for borderline players to slip into the hallowed hall and take their place alongside the immortal likes of Ruth, Mays, Feller and Gibson.

■A more forceful word than “absurd’’ is needed to describe the proliferation of awards shows and categories, but this is a family newspaper.

Though most of us were perfectly content with the big four — Oscars, Grammys, Emmys, and Tonys — we reluctantly made room in our lives for the dubious likes of the Golden Globes. But they just kept on coming. The People’s Choice Awards. The American Music Awards. The Academy of Country Music Awards, not to be confused with the American Country Awards or the Country Music Association Awards, though we wouldn’t blame you if you did. The Screen Actors Guild Awards. The MTV Video Music Awards. The Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards, not to be confused with the Teen Choice Awards. The Scream Awards (horror and sci-fi). The Costume Designers Guild Awards. Last week the already-bloated field grew by one more, as Billboard magazine announced it is bringing back the Billboard Music Awards after a five-year hiatus.

Bottom line: If you’re in the entertainment industry and you haven’t been nominated for an award of some kind, it really might be time to consider another line of work.

So what’s going on here? Why does everybody get invited to the party? Doesn’t this tend to devalue the invitation itself, not to mention the idea of excellence?

Let’s start with the obvious answer: A five-letter word that starts with “m.’’ More awards shows and more playoff games mean more TV revenue for all concerned, plus publicity, an equally valuable if less measurable currency. Then there’s the fact that the entertainment industry and the sports industry share an abiding passion for shiny trophies. (The ESPY Awards on ESPN cunningly combine the values of both worlds).

But might the lowering of the bar also reflect an underlying uncertainty among about what constitutes excellence nowadays?

After all, the landscape keeps shifting. Baseball’s steroid scandal greatly complicates the equation when it comes to assessing players from that era. Athletic prowess on the college level often seems to go hand-in-hand with recruiting violations. On television, our definition of stardom has been rewritten in recent years to accommodate a dismal parade of “reality’’ show exhibitionists. They increasingly crop up on magazine covers once reserved for people with actual, you know, talent.

Are we too busy keeping up with the Kardashians to keep up our standards? Have we become a terminally indecisive culture, no longer trusting our judgment when we have to decide whether (in the words of the indisputably excellent Cole Porter) it’s the good turtle soup or merely the mock?

Given the spread of the “Everybody wins’’ mind-set among artistic and athletic pacesetters, perhaps it’s only logical, and even heartening, that average folks should decide to get into the act. That appears to be the case on a clever social media website called the Universal Record Database.

Calling itself “the definitive site for human achievement: A new place to create your own world records,’’ it showcases people who set records in categories of their own devising, such as “Most Party Hats Worn at Once,’’ “Most Harry Potter Characters in 45 Seconds,’’ “Most Curly-Haired People in a Photograph, “Most Retorts by a Deli Waiter in 30 Seconds,’’ “Most Crustless Peanut Butter and Jam Sandwiches Eaten by One Person in 10 Bites,’’ “Most High-Fives While an Audience Recites the Pledge of Allegiance,’’ and “Fastest Time to Name All ‘Star Trek’ TV Episodes in Broadcast Order.’’

One of the site’s cofounders, Dan Rollman, has said it was “built on a belief that everyone on earth can be the world’s best at something.’’

Give that man an awards show!

Don Aucoin can be reached at aucoin@globe.com.