Enjoyment of “reality” shows like The Hills or Daisy of Love come with certain conditions. One: it’s a bad idea to watch alone. Or at least without a solid Internet connection and the misguided notion that blogs are friends. There is nothing more demoralizing than sitting down by your lonesome to a show whose main value lies in the external dialogue created around it. The Hills is basically that back page of Star magazine “Week’s Worst Dressed” wherein C-grade comedians and sometimes Julia Allison make unfunny, mostly incomprehensible quips at the expense of the terribly dressed. (Picture: Martha Stewart dressed in striped shirt, Quip: “Looks like someone misses the prison couture.” Yes, THAT one.) The point being that the terribly dressed celebs are a platform, just as reality shows like The Hills showcase stupidly attractive narcissists vaguely acting out scripted reality so Ivy League grads with loosely defined bloggery-type media jobs like yourself can expound on your campy enjoyment of it or sit around at Monday night viewing parties and make sharp-witted comments. And don’t get me wrong--- THIS IS A GOOD THING. But my point is that if you took away that meta-TV reaction, you are just sitting on your couch alone watching morons who will never earn your emotional investment. That can’t be fun. I mean, I suppose there are people in the world who take The Hills very, very earnestly, hence Lauren Conrad getting a Kohl’s line, but I’m pretty sure those people are stupid or preteens. And I’m pretty sure I don’t want to address the stupid or the preteen.

I hope you don’t consider yourself violated when I tell you that this has all been an overly meandering exposition for a fairly simple sentiment: I frakking LOVE MTV’s high school reality show Taking The Stage. Mostly because the equation doesn’t compute. MTV + high school + reality show doesn’t = dumbfuck microcelebs. And, as it turns out, that’s more refreshing than a 4pm Fresca after a mid-afternoon tampon change. Sure the students have banal high school anxieties— half of Mia’s time is spent trying to decipher the lame-ass flirtations of Tyler, who has a girlfriend he is very clearly too pussy to leave. But after Mia finishes her naïve, navel-gazing rant about how great they would be together, the fact remains that she sings like this:



Contrast that against Heidi Montag’s ill-fledged music career or Spencer Pratt’s should-be-trademarked method of existential dickbaggery, both of which unfortunately have more staying power than swine flu. Isn’t it kind of nice to watch a reality show with people you like, despite their annoying traits? With people who maybe have some obnoxiously grandiose dreams, but are so talented you’re not upset by all the props MTV throws their way? I think this is what being a really nice person feels like, and I like when TV inspires positive character growth in my person.