Dude, I've been spending way too much of my day over at Hot or Not, and I know how wrong that is, as a self-respecting member of the human race, but it's just so...addictive! When some chick with huge, prosthetic breasts, a fake tan, and more make-up than those girls who work the Clinique counter at Marshall Field's posts a picture asking if I think she's "hot", I feel compelled to throw in my two cents. Likewise for the guys who put in shirtless photos of themselves in their Abercrombie & Fitch running shorts, flashing little hand signs and glaring at the camera to let us know how hard their core is, in a "casual" pose that comes off more staged than an amateur production of Brecht's The Threepenny Opera.
Hot or Not isn't for the faint of heart, however. You'll be confronted with photos of dowdy, pasty people flashing you crooked, but genuine smiles, and you will be forced to take on your conscience in wondering how to vote. Can you see past the unattractive exterior to appreciate the soul of someone willing to put themselves out there like that? Can you see the hotness within? Or do you regard them with cold, hard objectivity, knowing that they've opened themselves up it by buying into something so materialistic as a website dedicated to evaluating you purely based on your outward appearance, and give them a 2? I say give them a 2. Give them all a 2! Except for the really hot ones. And anyone with a doggie in their photo.
On a similar note, FOX seems to be sounding the trump to herald the end of days. If prime time television was the collective national IQ, their recent slate of programming would be dragging down the average for the entire country.
I mean, seriously. The only way I can explain programs like Joe Millionaire is that Armageddon is, in fact, approaching. And I don't mean that piece-of-shit extended Coke commercial starring Bruce Willis, either.
Now don't get me wrong; I enjoy being pandered to as much as the next guy! I didn't at one time, of course, but American Idol swiftly broke my thin veneer of reality tv snobbery. I just had to tune in every week and see who screwed up the most, and who cried, and who rocked my socks off. I knew it was The End for me when I started voting (for Kelly, like the rest of the thinking world). Now it's spiralled out of control, though. Not only do I watch Joe Millionaire, and salivate thinking about the sheer, frivolous desperation of the American Idol 2 premiere, but I'm also planning on watching Marriage by America, which promises to scrape the bottom of the barrel so violently that it will leave permanent grooves.
Take a look at Joe Millionaire. No, seriously, do it. It's a freakshow! I assume you're all familiar with the concept by now (short version: twenty women trying to land a rich, rich man who's really a poor, poor man), and it's just laughable. You have to believe that any guy willing to part in this charade must be a world-class a-hole or else dumb as a shovel, and since Evan Marriott seems like a truly well-meaning guy (and he's a Guy, all right), you have to concede the latter. Plus which, when stupid Mojo asked him his middle name, it stumped him. The best part of this show, though, is the promotional campaign, which insists that Evan will try to find the woman who's true love can endure a "fifty million dollar lie". I'm sorry, but nothing can endure that great a deception. Try again FOX.
And try they did! Marriage by America looks to be an absolute fiasco of Darva Conger proportions. The American public gets to play matchmaker for a bunch of desperate (and apparently completely crazy) strangers. Imagine if Chuck Barris ran American Idol, and you'd get Married by America. Much like Hot or Not, however, I feel obligated to give these people my input. If they're asking for it, I might as well, right? And believe you me, they're asking for it.
Of course, FOX is not alone in perpetrating these crimes against the once-delicate sensibilities of the American viewing population. We've also been tossed dreck like The Bachelor(ette), The Surreal Life, High School Reunion, and "Celebrity" Mole, too! Why are we gluttons for such bottom-feeding fare as this? What has happened to our society that we've careened down this slippery slope, and is there any going back from these depths to which we've sunk? Or are we in for a Joe Millionaire 2, featuring the twenty women culled from the farthest reaches of the Everglades who will not already know the gimmick by the time the show is being put together?
Either way, I hope I've found my dignity by then.