Fight of the Conchords

http://nyulocal.com/entertainment/2009/02/02/flight-of-the-conchords-achieves-success-by-mocking-most-of-us/

& to read me in 140 characters or less...

http://twitter.com/emarevee

Link Love

http://nyulocal.com/entertainment/2008/09/29/how-gawker-lost-its-edge/

http://nyulocal.com/entertainment/2009/03/19/the-city-exceeds-our-not-so-great-expectations/

Almost Famous*

*relatively speaking.




Emily Gould, Cory Kennedy, and the Generation of Internet It Girls.

Reader: I don’t know you. I don’t even know if I know you in real life. Don’t tell my imaginary marketing team or my invisible interns, but I have no idea who the “Teenage Debauchery” demographic is. In fact, I don’t know if anyone reads this at all. I may be the sole reader of these words. I’m writing this from a coffeehouse at 10 pm, sitting alone at a table in the back, a real life cliché, brooding over my Macbook. Nobody is paying me to write this. The Smiths are playing painfully loudly over Mud’s speakers. I could be doing a number of other things at this moment, but I’m not. The question that may explain the contemporary crop of quasi-celebrities is, simply, why?

Though I don’t really know if anyone besides me is reading this, I could venture a guess that someone is because it’s, like, linked on my Facebook page, and friends tell me that they do and give me feedback and whatnot. This is, on some level, important to me. While I write for the sake of the creative process, I could keep this stored eternally in the files of my Microsoft Word. But, instead, I’m exposing it on the internet for the benefit of anyone in the universe with a wireless or ethernet connection. And in any sort of public posting, void of password protection or some sort of secrecy, the existence of the reader/viewer/voyeur becomes vital. Ostensibly, I’m not trying to achieve fame through a sparsely-updated, unadvertised, and rarely-personal blogspot account. But it certainly wouldn’t hurt.

That minor interest in “fame” has begotten a generation of faux celebrities garnering real fame (or, more often, real notoriety) through making their selves public vis a internet exposure. This week’s New York Times Magazine cover story discusses that sort of fame, while also perpetuating and validating it by giving the unseemly and relatively unknown star / blogger / writer / the opportunity to write it herself – a story about, of course, herself. Said “star” is former Gawer.com editor Emily Gould, who made a name writing searing paragraph-long tidbits of Manhattan media gossip interspersed with relevant blog links and some celebrity news. As Gawker gained page hits and national interest, “Manhattan media news” included Gould herself. Through self-deprecation she spared herself some of the merciless humor she wrought on her subjects but, as she became known to bored urbanites at work for her distinctive sarcasm and bitter wit, interest in her grew. While most celebrities (ie: actors), have a love/hate relationship with the limelight on their personal lives, when a “normal” person, relatable even, vulnerable, finds relative public interest in her/him through seemingly arbitrary means – a growing number of people stumbling upon the image or words that he/she made public on the internet without much thought - the temptation to satiate the public’s voyeuristic appetite for, well, you, can be alluring. Even if they're as interested in critiquing your life as they are in hearing about it.

Gould's looks were certainly part of the package (as was her melodramatic early twentysomething love life). Like most things about her, her looks are normal on the side of cute, possibly even attractive. Gould's tattooed not bad body is sort of symbolic of her appeal as a whole: a normal girl who fell into an odd sort of fame that she has yet to figure out a way to extract herself from, if that's what she wants to do at all. "The Lauren Conrad Complex," if you will.

A similar path also led to the web birth of Cory Kennedy, underage hipster du jour. In the ‘90s, Kennedy would have just been a conventional L.A. scene girl, familiar only in local circles. If she were to become famous (as a model/artist/hooker/waitress/model/actress; it is indeed all so sugarless), it would be a rare and lucky break boosting her to national stardom and monetary success, like the NYC kids of “Kids”(Rosario Dawson, Chloe Seveigny, Harmony Korine) and other scenesters cum stars through arbitrary “discovery.” But, more likely, Kennedy would remain an unknown outside of her social circle, thereby never garnering achievements as lofty as say her Nylon Magazine cover.

What’s changed?

Now, most subcultural scenes are documented on the internet, to an increasingly wide audience, making Kennedy a star for doing nothing more than hanging out and dressing hip – life goals she’d likely be pursuing even without the Cobrasnake's lens to capture them.

The crop of quasi-celebrities (Tila Tequila, for yet another example of a positive role model) who have achieved quote unquote fame through accidental exposure on the internet is laden with paradoxes: they aren’t really celebrities, they’re not actually famous, and it’s not entirely accidental. Even within my own circle of New York City – based “Teenage Debauchery!” readers, the name Emily Gould is only vaguely familiar, if at all, and probably not that interesting. Cory Kennedy has – with an unexpected staying power in the bizarre industry of accidental fame – become a cultural symbol for a certain sartorial look and lifestyle, but it’s doubtful that anyone not a) living in New York, b) living in L.A. or c) interested in fashion/drugs/Sparks/the emaciated-in-boots-worldview has even heard of her. Yet their very fame is validated by their garnering national magazine cover stories in spite of their unfamousness – which the stories are always about. Why are they famous? For being in magazines. Why are they in magazines? For not being famous, but being in magazines regardless.

National voyeurism and a postmodern skepticism for anything fabricated or created is central to the success of these characters. Reality has become the new entertainment – on television and elsewhere. There’s no question that Americans care more about Lindsay Lohan’s off-camera exploits than her films. Quasi-celebrities like Gould and Kennedy work the fame game in reverse: putting their private lives in the public light – intentionally or otherwise - before the public even has a reason to be interested in it. When arbitrary public interest occurs through their perpetuated self-promotion and achievement of relative internet fame, they attempt not to shield their secrets but to further divulge them. And then the shit-talking begins. But for every commenter who proclaims “attention whore!,” another set of eyes and further step towards celebrity is achieved on their scoreboard. In the famous-for-being-famous business, there is only notoriety and no acclaim. The payoff, of course, is having your base fame validated, eventually, by a cover story in the Times Magazine – a spot any J-school kid would kill for. The payoff is an odd sort of success.

The payoff is that eventually the public’s disgust for you becomes the very spew that churns your monetary reward and legitimization as celebrity. This could be dubbed “The Paris Hilton Paradox.”

But there is some distinction between the Paris Hiltons and the Emily Goulds: both have climbed the ropes of self-exposure to the heights of relative fame, but some girls are born stars; other girls are only as famous as the secrets they type.

xoxo,

teenage debauchery v. 2.0 :
w/ more meta than ever b4.

Sex & The Idiot?: Why Carrie Bradshaw is Perpetually Single.

I have seen every episode of every season of “Sex & The City,” and I am not ashamed of this. As entertainment goes, “Sex & The City” isn’t even a special favorite of mine, but it certainly has its merits. However, at the core of “Sex & The City” is an ideological issue: while watching Carrie Bradshaw’s myriad failed relationships, I couldn’t help but wonder . . . when is it time to wake up and realize that, as you approach 40, it just might be your own fault that no man wants you?

Carrie Bradshaw, fictional, fabulous columnist with a unique sense of fashion and a penchant for puns, and “Mr. Big,” suave and endearing (yet so cold and inconsiderate!) are arguably the most well crafted couple in television history. It’s not necessary to even mention how hackneyed it is to compare oneself and one’s (former) lover to the two of them, because everyone who watches “Sex & The City” compares themselves and their former flame, at some point, to the dysfunctional duo. But Carrie & Big aren’t a popular analogy because “Sex & The City” is a popular show; “Sex & The City” is a popular show because Carrie & Big were created to resemble every possible relationship in the world in which (at least) one person got hurt, which is pretty common if not inevitable altogether. To explain exactly why the Carrie & Big paradigm can be used as a model for every painful relationship of any sort would be, most likely, merely to project my own twenty years of struggles with other people onto the two of them; they’re like the optical illusion of television couples – you only see in them what you’ve already seen in someone real. For proof of this theory, ask yourself: why didn’t Carrie and Big work out? Then notice how similar your answer is to why you and ________ didn’t/don’t/couldn’t/won’t work out. They are a brilliantly crafted mirage: everyone who looks at Carrie & Big manages to see only their own reflection.

In their six season relationship as friends, lovers, and something ambiguously in between, Mr. Big put Carrie Bradshaw through just about every relationship pain possible. Strong, smart, and independent as she is, Carrie always (sort of) managed to eventually move on, with her sense of self in tact, as well as her galpals and expensive shoes. But the one episode that more or less sums up the entire series in terms of Carrie & Big’s relationship dynamics (why they couldn't work) and Carrie's inherent contradictions (why it just might be her fault) is the Season 2 finale, cutely titled “Ex & The City.”

In “Ex & The City,” Carrie finds out that that Big is not only dating a hotter, younger woman, but he’s engaged to her, despite being commitment-phobic with Carrie. This scenario is actually brilliant, because everyone can breathe a sigh of relief while watching it, thinking that even though their ex may have seriously fucked with them, nobody got shit on quite like Carrie (except Jennifer Aniston). Carrie freaks out at first, of course, as anyone would, but by the end of the episode she does what millions of other American viewers out there are doing at that very minute: consoles herself by comparing herself to the movies.

Ms. Bradshaw, mourning the loss of the possibility of being Mrs. Big, notices that her situation is just like some Barbara Streisand movie that I’m too young and not gay to have seen, “The Way We Were.” Carrie thinks she is just like Babs in “The Way We Were” because, as she puts it: she is a Katie with curly hair and complications, and Big’s fiancé is a “simple girl.” Carrie divides the world (I assume she means Manhattan) into two categories: the Katies (real women!!), and the simple girls.

Single viewer, guess which category you fall in.

Even after this comforting epiphany – that her sass is just so overwhelming that it couldn’t be contained by Big – Carrie, true to form, finds herself wandering sadly near Big’s engagement party. When she conveniently runs into him, she has to ask him: why not me? (Which is actually incredibly rude, it was the man’s own engagement party for Christ’s sake; could that question not have waited?)

I must give kudos to “Sex & The City” here, however, for asking the question that every forsaken lover wonders. But it is in answering this question that the show gets to hearts of its own contradictions: Big subtly confirms that Carrie is right about her understanding of herself and their relationship, or so she thinks at least, when he says that “it just got so hard . . . and she’s [referring to his fiancé] . . . [simple].” Carrie nods and walks away proudly as she notices a man struggling to tie reigns onto a horse, as the horse shakes its head wildly and naaaa-aaa-yyys for all the independent women out there, who can’t be tied down by a man! She may not have a man, she thinks, but at least she has herself, and that silky white dress.

. . .Right?

No, Carrie. I’m afraid not. Despite the smoke and mirrors of strength and independence, not one of the women in “Sex & The City” could ultimately live without a dick. This isn’t necessarily a contradiction within the show, but a flaw within the character: Carrie seems to feel that she can’t help but be a Katie, “complicated,” and certain men just can't handle a Katie. But in the end, no man wants a woman who is going to constantly fight with him, and that seems to be Katie's forte, as she struggles with the reigns a man puts on her. If you want to be with someone you love, perhaps you should consider shedding your Katie coat, because the Katie’s just get annoying after a while. It’s not necessarily a favorable trait to be so constipated with complications that you’re ultimately unbearable to be in a relationship with, and it’s certainly not surprising that a man wouldn’t want to marry this crazy Katie.

Carrie says something about wanting to find someone as wild to run with or something like that, but it certainly doesn’t seem like that relationship would function if even a half-Katie relationship doesn’t work. Is it not a sign of maturity to sacrifice aspects of yourself for the one you love? It may not be fun or fair, but at what point do you have to decide between settling on the person you’re with, or settling on the person you are? And if, as Carrie so passionately proclaims in the series finale, you are someone looking for “real love!” is obstinate integrity so much to give up? “Sex & The City” might be consoling single women everywhere, but it just might also be hurting them by glorifying the very traits that are keeping them single, when all they really want is to find a man.

Go run free with the other wild horses, Carrie. Just prepare to do it alone (at least until the season six finale).

Gossip Girl of My Dreams.Com: The Surprising Plausibility of Blair Waldorf’s Face(book), Revisited.

In re-thinking the new wave of quality teenage television, it's become evident that viewers and bloggers are overlooking the unlikely relevance of a certain aspect of the CW's hit teen soap opera Gossip Girl. The show places what I may have referred to as a quote unquote inexplicably omnipresent blogger at the center of the social circle of the over-privileged and underage. The show’s anonymous narrator is snarky to the point of self-mockery. But beneath the veil of a campy tone, the voice that tells you who is seeing and being scene seems to wink and nod her thanks to sources that have yet to be referenced on television: the likes of Gawker and Perez Hilton.

I do not update this website often. That’s because it’s not a blog, and I’m not a blogger. I use this .blogspot hosted website to allow readers to read my writing. I have no problems with blogs at all, it’s just that this isn’t really one of them because – and here is what this introduction has been leading to – blogs have become the following: a competition for the most original gimmick to relentlessly write tongue-in-cheek, subtly scornful paragraphs about. Because, with the invention of the internet, “everyone’s a writer!” as so many magazines are now prone to proclaiming, the quality of the writing doesn’t matter, but rather: how goddamn quirky the subject matter is, or how cruelly one can tear something apart. There is nothing wrong with this, its just a strange phenomena, though perhaps less strange when you think about it: if people will read anything that one publishes on the internet, and blogs, unlike publishing companies, set no standards for quality, and people, somewhat like publishing companies, don’t really know the difference between good writing and bad writing (and perhaps there is little), then what keeps people reading after blog and blog again will eventually not be the writing itself but rather the novelty of the subject matter. Additionally, these oft-updated websites can double as a subtle marketing tool.

But the straw that broke the blog’s back, I believe, is the cringe-worthy “NY Girl of My Dreams” bullshit. If you have not yet heard, some American Apparel hoodie – toting scruffy twentysomething guy in New York (who was already sort of studly to the point where I find it difficult to believe that his straight, stylish self was both a) single and b) totally fucking desperate) thought that a Missed Connection just couldn’t handle the server needed for the weight of his unrequited subway-ride long love, so he started an entire website - www.nygirlofmydreams.com, a domain name inexplicably untaken, and posted a personal ad, looking for that cloyingly cute hipster hottie he rode the L with. In his painfully adorable handwriting he pointed out that he was “skinny,” “tall,” and “not insane,” though he might as well have just mentioned that the zaftig girl in the blue gym shorts was “kind of fat,” and “really-cliché looking.” But he left that part out. And, actually, she's totally hot, but I just wanted to call someone fat, because I'm blogging.



She, conveniently, interns at Blackbook (and probably doubles as an NYU student, though that’s unverified). And, despite the odds, she found him! And he didn’t even know her name. Her friend tipped her off, and her friend is called TRUE LOVE, obviously, which transcends all boundaries and gives you boyfriends, promotions, Us Weekly attention, etc. al. Isn’t the internet great? If only Carrie Bradshaw had had a blog. Anyway, the whole website was off-putting: it’s just kind of creepy. And, if not creepy, then kind of nauseating in that distinctly rom-com sort of way – so distinct, in fact, that, there is already discussion of the rights to this Patrick Moberg’s (the downtown Prince Charming) story being sold. Even if this man meant it, the whole ordeal is simply the most blatant form of makeshift quirk via the internet that one could muster. Now that “true love” has hit the blogwaves, can we call it quits? Not that blogging will cease; in fact, its clearly growing by the day, but its becoming official: your blog isn’t a place to showcase your writing, but, rather, like all forms of fictitious internet personas: a place for you to manufacture a personality.

Which brings me back to Blaire. I was wrong to write off Gossip Girl’s narration as laughably silly: it is, actually, anything but. Short, scornful sayings? Witty, snarky phrases? And, of course, consistency (Gossip Girl always and only signs off with her trademarked © “XOXO”). She has all the makings of a true, modern day blogger. She’s got her shtick – teenage debauchery (hey, that one’s taken), her style – tongue-in-cheek, subtly scathing, and perpetually sassy (also not especially original), and her built-in-audience – the Upper East Side (eg: www.socialiterank.com).

Then there is the matter of her omniscience. How, one might ask, could one girl be everywhere that everyone who matters is, all the time? And, one might also ask, who would care to read about them? This is where Gossip Girl takes a successful leap into understanding the zeitgeist of contemporary youth culture. Facebook was recently given a twenty five million dollar investment by Microsoft. This was not for lack of users or importance. Gossip Girl may simplify the situation with its quick stalkerazzi scenes of blank-faced high schoolers sending camera phone photos and text messages of anything that happens, within minutes of its occurance, but how unrealistic is this, really? Are our lives not becoming rapidly self-documented and publicly displayed – as well as deliberately manipulated and glamorized – on the pages of our personal internet expression, the omnipresent Facebooks and MySpaces? Do we not know and see all that is to be discussed at rapid speed through technology? What may seem like the most farcical aspect of Gossip Girl may actually be the most boldly realistic: technology, if nothing else, is making it a hell of a lot easier to gossip and bitch, and a show about both of those things may very well ring(tone) true for our generation.

The Hills are Alive.

America's Insatiable Appetite for Young, Rich, Dumb People. [or: The Hills vs. Gossip Girl: A Coastal Fight for Cultural Zeitgeist].



It’s been two years since Marissa Cooper met her demise on Fox’s “The O.C.” With that swan song (to the tune of Imogen Heap’s cringe-worthy cover of “Hallelujah”), a moment of cultural clarity was lost and gone forever. Beginning with the first season of “The O.C.” (2003), it became unanimously agreed upon that, at the least, Mischa Barton was hot!!!. With witty writing and beautiful casting, the melodramatic primetime soap opera had widespread effects for teenage style, sex appeal, and music collections (skinny girls and emo boys – it’s the show that restarted it all!). But then the kids (both characters and viewers) had to go off to college, and Marissa Cooper had to die in a fiery car crash, and by the end of the third season, the show’s irrelevance was as palpable as its sharp decline in quality. With the cessation of its inspiration, MTV’s “Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County” met a similar, sad fate (while it still continues in “Newport Harbor: The Real Orange County,” nobody’s watching anymore, and for good reason). It’s only fitting that these shows should cease to garner ratings and discussion as quickly as they found them in the first place: any movements that catch on with a generational wave, a specific and arguably important stylistic (and entertainment) movement in youth culture, must meet their maker when the kids grow up and find new fads. Such is the shelf life of over-stylized but well-made media. Save it for “I Love The ‘00s.”

In this new era of pirating and YouTubing, television networks have been scrambling to find the next show that will get the kids interested. While the wave of reality competition shows (“Project Runway,” “Top Chef”) bases its formula in the “anyone can make it!” motto of American aspirations, they fail to catch on in markets outside of their own (millions of viewers may have watched the last season of “American Idol,” but millions of people are not buying the winner’s album. While “Project Runway” might have captivated young fashionistas, it failed to affect their wardrobes). It’s been a few years since a television show has managed to truly infiltrate the complex world of youth culture.

It’s almost always unexpected when any media actually does have widespread affects. That’s sort of part of the plan, the punch of teenagers, so to speak: “you can feed us your garbage, but you can never be so sure which parts of it we will eat up.” So it comes as no surprise that a third season half-hour MTV reality show about blonde girls has taken on that role.

Okay, I’m not saying that “The Hills” has necessarily taken the world by storm. But it is, somewhat inexplicably, MTV’s highest-rated show and reportedly “the only show keeping the network afloat.” It’s also one of the highest-rated shows on cable overall, and, unlike so many television shows, it has successfully turned its cast members into legitimate celebrities.

Thus, “The Hills” paradox: are Lauren, Heidi, Whitney, and Brody becoming celebrities because of “The Hills,” or is “The Hills” becoming popular because Lauren, Heidi, Whitney, and Brody are celebrities? It is actually this very question that is likely lending the series its success. Let’s take a close look at the show:

Lauren Conrad is essentially living out the first real-life “Truman Show.” Since her adolescence, Lauren "LC" Conrad's ups and downs have been documented and viewed by millions of American teenagers. We have seen her go from a high school senior who struggled to keep up her grades as she made sad eyes at best friend Stephen (who was, of course, sleeping with arch-enemy Kristin). There we were on her spring break in Cabo and through her emotional graduation ceremony. We watched her plans quickly fall apart her first semester at college in San Francisco; saw her sort of pathetic move home and then, finally, redemption: “The Hills” Season 1. Somehow forgoing the four years we call college (though I'm sure had she not done that, we would all be watching the most MTV could legally show on some show like "The University"), LC changed her name to Lauren and skipped to the "move to [insert major American city here], get a job, a kick-ass albeit small and partially-parentally-paid apartment, and invitations to exclusive parties" part of the American teenage evolution. While, honestly, Lauren is still sort of sad and pathetic, those traits are now subtle or perhaps relatable enough to turn her into an unlikely heroine. Also, she’s hot.

"The Hills" was essentially just a spin-off thanks to the success of "Laguna Beach," MTV's attempt to keep the ratings steam going on its breakthrough hit. I doubt MTV expected "The Hills" to eventually be their highest-rated show in its third season, and I don't think anyone expected Lauren Conrad to become an actual celebrity. But here we are, years later, still right alongside Lauren Conrad as the boy we saw her begin dating three years ago gets engaged (post-rehab) to some other blonde girl. Additionally, America has essentially watched Lauren Conrad go from cute high school senior to tabloid-targeted celebrity, but she also made that metamorphosis because we watched her.

What is most bizarre about Lauren’s charmed and relatively calm life is that, while a lot of fucked up shit has not actually ostensibly happened to her (aside from relationship and friendship struggles), fucked up shit happening to her actually helps her career immensely. Every mistake L.C has ever made she has had to make publicly and then to re-live in reruns, watching herself fall for the wrong guy over and over again, to the tune of a cash register. Because every mistake she has ever made is now another royalty check. In Lauren Conrad's life, the line between art and reality is as thin as can be: her life is actually her “art,” and her art is also her commerce. I’m not necessarily saying that L.C. is an artist, but the bizarre constant cameras in her face, following her from adolescence into adulthood in the eyes of a public that is actually watching, is downright Warholian, and is perhaps the most accidentally original and unexpectedly successful commercial artistic expression of the past few years.

Hence: the success of “The Hills.” L.A. is the new New York. City streets everywhere are saturated with pretty girls in chic, short white dresses making coy smiles and wishing that they had Lauren’s cuteness. Lauren lands a spot at Teen Vogue and advertises for a myriad of beauty companies. Us Weekly stalks her and her friends. Ultimately, “The Hills” is not merely riding the wave of “Laguna Beach” and following its viewers from high school to twentysomething, but rather “Laguna Beach” has been the unintentional vehicle for the bizarre and increasingly popular experiment in television that is Lauren Conrad’s life.

And then “Gossip Girl” came along. Gossip Girl is sort of the anti-“Hills.” Whereas "The Hills" attempts to be an objective portrayal of a glamorous lifestyle (often failing both in being objective and in portraying glamour),"Gossip Girl" revels in its own implausibility. Narrated by an inexplicably omniscient and super sassy female blogger, "Gossip Girl" attempts to subjectively portray a world that doesn’t exist quite as neatly as it does in the series. Either out of an overzealous excitement about its own implausibility or as a subtly satirical and campy means of excusing its flaws, “Gossip Girl” pushes the envelope as far from reality as possible, shortening the characters names to initials and ending every inane monologue with “xoxo, Gossip Girl.” Yes, Gossip Girl is actually a person: a mysterious girl who runs a website with every piece of gossip on the underage Upper East Siders (a phrase I am borrowing from the blogger herself). It’s not that “Gossip Girl” is entirely unrealistic – it isn’t; it’s that “Gossip Girl” doesn’t care whether your life looks like your screen or not because it is deliberately unrelated to the lives of its viewers: it is a show for the sake of entertainment and starry-eyed envy. The creator, Josh Schwartz, who not so coincidentally also created “The O.C.,” is garnering viewers nationwide not because the young viewers know the characters like they know Lauren Conrad, but because the characters are contrived to make one wish that they were one. We can relate to Lauren’s bad choice of boyfriends, but we can only wish that we could relate to the high-stakes drama of an overblown Upper East Side private school.

There are elements of “Gossip Girl” that have certainly updated the rich/beautiful/dramatic/scandalous teenage debauchery formula for a new generation: whereas the hot girls on “The O.C.” were just mean, the hot girls on “Gossip Girl” are mean while toting a new weapon: self-awareness. Whereas the kids in Newport Harbor were merely rich and beautiful, the jaded generation of gossip girls and boys is consciously rich and beautiful, cognizant of their privileged places in the world and also bored by them (and, in some sense, even aware that they are supposed to be bored by their roles). In many ways, the alluring “Gossip Girl” characters – and in a surprising twist, they have thus far been painted as real characters rather than pretty caricatures – are overcoming the overwhelming feeling of being over everything. It may be this self-awareness that is making waves with audiences. Also updated since “The O.C.” is the soundtrack, forgoing the indie tunes that Seth Cohen rocked for pop songs that fit with the “mainstream is the new subculture” Rihanna-driven scene of today. All of that, and a hot cast and good writing.

But don’t write off “a hot cast and good writing” as obvious. What truly separates “Gossip Girl” from “The Hills” is that “The Hills” is being marketed to a postmodern generation largely considered too entertainment-savvy to buy the classic elements of television shows. “Gossip Girl” is banking on the classic money-making aspects of most mainstream media: beauty, talent, and entertainment value. There are no postmodern pretensions to “Gossip Girl.” While the character creation is attempting to update archetypes to make them modern, the foundation of the show is simply good entertainment. The foundations of “The Hills” are much more complicated.

In fact, Lauren Conrad’s life is actually incredibly boring. "The Hills," truthfully, has almost no excessive drama. Dancing at Les Deux and working a hip internship at Teen Vogue, Lauren is, admittedly, sort of glamorous. But barely! Most conversations on "The Hills" are entirely pedestrian. Lauren’s relationships are long and boring and seemingly inexplicable. Her friends are carbon copies of her: sweet, pretty, rich. The only "Hills" character to ever break the mold was, of course, Heidi. And, as "The Hills" goes, the Heidi/Lauren split was relatively dramatic (albeit true to life). But, also: not really. Heidi drove away with her villified (and incredibly creepy) boyfriend in a van one day, and the two girls became veritable rivals and enemies thenceforth. Still, the extent of their split has thus far consisted of mean comments in the media and, once, a few tongue-in-cheek drinks served to each other. Ironically, though, I am sometimes fascinated by how little actually happens on "The Hills." Watching Lauren and Jason's dates consist of awkward silences, quick, coy glances at each other, and seemingly endless important things to do on their Blackberries, I wonder whether I am shocked by how little two people can have to say to each other, or by how much dead air MTV will allow.

But I am fascinated by it. And this is what ultimately makes “The Hills” the winner in the fight for cultural relevance. “Gossip Girl” is far more entertaining, but we’re living in a post-entertainment age, where Americans prefer watching their pop stars fall apart rather than enjoying the pre-packaged façade of beauty that pop stars were intended to deliver. We are currently too smart for our own good: we all think we’re too jaded to story arks and archetypes to fall for quality entertainment. “The Hills,” a reality show, allows its viewers to feel like legitimate insiders into the same world we see in Us Weekly (because, fortunately for MTV, Lauren Conrad is now in Us Weekly). “Gossip Girl” is also a peak behind the scenes of glamour, but our jaded eyes can spot a fake when they see one and now refuse to play along. We devour tabloids for the purpose of finding the flaws in the demigods, preferring to prove that our idols are liars rather than finding the merits in the lies. So Gossip Girl will have to take second place with the other shows that, while possibly well-made and smart, are not legitimately voyeuristic or self-aware enough to quench our thirst for a few minutes of mindlessness. It's somehow more sensational now to watch the awkward silences and subtle comments on “The Hills" than to watch a contrived sex scene. We’d rather feel like judgmental insiders than inadequate audience members. So while we may never get enough of rich, dumb, young people, these days, they had better be real ones.

xoxo.