Keeping Trim on the Hills

So I was online trying my best to avoid work of any kind, when I can across one of those little advertisements that appear on the margin of facebook that said “how did Lauren Conrad lose the weight and keep it off…The Hills diet”. Ok A. when did this Lauren character have weight to begin with. I thought one of the pre-requisites of being on this “reality” show involved having drama without any real world implications, ie being overweight, being broke, not having a job. You know all of those things reality shows try so desperately to convince us don’t exist. Rich girls don’t have your problems; they just have deep discussions about flawed friendships, and unrequited love in perfectly cut scenes, scored with top forty pop and staggeringly limited dialogue. B. even if we ignore this first presupposition, then I think it’s suffice to say that the “secret” to any wealthy teenagers weight lose, or stick-figure frame is simply that they can afford fruits and veggies. When I was an undergrad, I participated in this study of attempting to live off of a welfare budget. You know this type of experiment; teach the rich college kids how the other half lives, as if majority of the class wasn’t living off student loans and ramen already. And while I participated with every intention of “getting something out of it” it was pretty pointless. Our professor gave us daily accounts of how she factored her daily expenditures. You know if you divide the cup of oatmeal she took out of her bulk bin by the total amount and add the teaspoon of maple syrup in exact $ amount, etc etc, you not only realize that your breakfast costs a mere dollar or two, but you also completely miss the point and make nothing more then a mockery of the true nature of the experiment. See the point of this isn’t to calculate the exact cost of your meals (All that will do is make a stronger case for not eating out), its about knowing the fear and horror of walking into a grocery store, with a welfare check and having to realize that it is next to impossible to feed yourself or your family for the next week with the sad amount in your hands. And furthermore, this is also supposed to prove, which to anyone who has every even glanced at any manner of feminist, progressive, socially related, or economic material like myself already knows, is that “fat” foods are cheap foods and skinny has replaced portly as a symbol of financial power. Simply put, the fruits and veggies and non-processed foods are really only realistic on a daily basis for people with more financial income. And that brings us back to C. The Hills is fake. Anyone who has ever left their home knows this. And while I am already upset with the show for its (and this offends the English major part of me) poorly written dialogue as well as its supposing that the youth of America are border-line vegetative, but this is a final straw. Dieting as a marketing ploy. Is nothing sacred to you people! The world of television marketing tie in’s has finally crossed the line.

So lets summarize what we’ve learned today:

1. According to MTV, real girls don’t have fat (or pimples or financial troubles)
2. Fat is just for poor people, we now understand (my college building cultures of peace class was a nimrod and) that skinny is the new fat in terms of social markers
3. The Hills is fake, and MTV thinks your dumb enough not to notice
4. Soon babies will be born with advertising logos
5. People who read feminist literature cannot even find joy in facebook without getting pissed about something
6. If thinking about The Hills doesn’t make you want to kill yourself, or weep for the future of mankind, keep an eye out for the next open casting call.