I get sucked into reality TV as much as the next guy. I love competition shows like So You Think You Can Dance and America's Best Dance Crew, and I even just got sucked into the American Idol craze (I'm lookin' at you, Danny Gokey). I admit that shows like Laguna Beach, The Hills, The City, and Making the Band are my guilty pleasures. And I enjoy watching reality shows about strong, successful women like The Rachel Zoe Project and Life in the Fab Lane. But I draw the line at shows like Flavor of Love and Paris Hilton's My New BFF. Really, ladies? Are you seriously kissing Flavor Flav and pretending to like it? *shudder* Are you really acting a fool and doing the ugly cry on national TV in the hopes of being crowned Paris Hilton's new fake BFF? All for .02 seconds of fame? Seriously?

Fame hungry "real" people are straight up shameless these days. Take the Real World. I used to really like that show despite how people questioned it's...realness. But now that show is just a bunch of h0rny kids who like to fight and get drunk all the damn time. Must see TV! I can't help but to wonder what their parents must be feeling. Yes, I realize that makes me very old and uncool.

You must have seen, or at least heard, how Al Roker totally put Heidi and Spencer (from The Hills) on blast the other day, right? It was painful to watch. But gratifying at the same time, I must say. The ridiculous lengths these two go to for D-list fame is embarrassing and I'm not sorry that someone called them out on it. I mean, do they get that people think they're a joke? Sadly, they probably do but don't care as long as they're making headlines. The Modern Mother Teresa and White Jay-Z, indeed.

A thought occurred to me the other day that personal blogging is like reality TV for writers. And we have our fair share of publicity whores. Sure, I'm guilty of a few shameless plugs here and there, but I'm so turned off by the blatant self-promotion going on these days. Like when I attended a blogging conference where some people just threw their business cards and promotional ice cream scoopers at me without so much as an introduction. Why thank you - now every time I have ice cream it will remind me to NEVER to visit your website. Or like when I'm bombarded with Tweets of everyone pointing everyone else to their blogs. I don't need a real time notification each time you post a new blog, thanks anyway - I have Google Reader and I'll get to your blog when I'm good and ready. And if I haven't subscribed to you, then what makes you think I want to know EACH AND EVERY TIME you post? Just sayin'.

Now, I write all this fully aware that these bloggers probably have five hundred thousand times more readers than I do. True, I may not have thousands, or even hundreds, or even ONE hundred readers, but I have my dignity, yo. That and five bucks will get me a cup of coffee, and that's good enough for me.

Labels: soapbox, the scoop