Tag Archives: popculture

The Moment of Truth: Get Rich By Making Everyone Hate You

Fox’s newest reality/game show The Moment of Truth seems like a simple concept to begin with — tell the truth and you can with $500,000. How hard can that be?

Apparently, it’s really hard. The contestants are asked 50 questions on a lie detector test before going on the show, and then the show’s writers pick 21 questions to ask them on-air. They go up a pyramid of money, and the questions get harder the longer they stay in the game. Of course their friends, family and co-workers are present to give evil looks and make them feel bad for admitting things like they’ve cheated on their significant others, even if it was only with their eyes.

This show really tells a lot about our culture. These people are in complete control of their winnings. How far will they go – by telling the truth – to make money?

Luckily for Fox, most people won’t get to the really hard questions. Either they’ll lie (who knows why they think they can get away with it) or they’ll quick one they hit $100k. Not that $100k is a bad winnings, but it’s amazing that thus far the contestants haven’t gone all the way to $500k. I mean, if you’re signing up for this show, you obviously understand you’ll have to admit to 21 things that you probably don’t want to admit to.

What do y’all think of this show?

Millionaire Matchmaker – Bravo’s Latest “Reality” Show

If you haven’t had a change to catch Bravo’s latest reality show: Millionaire Matchmaker, you’re not missing much. Take a bitchy Yenta from New Jersey, Patti Stranger, whose entire life is dedicated to helping super-wealthy men find the girl of his dreams. Surely it makes for a good business. She charges anywhere from $10,000 to $150,000 a year to hook up the hotties and the notties (oh god, did I just quote a Paris Hilton movie title?).

The men who appeared on the television show were actually fairly attractive, but one has to assume for every attractive-yet-single millionaire willing to appear on TV, there’s another ten whose reflection would likely crack mirrors.

Overall, the show greatly offended me. The men, surprisingly enough, did not offend me at all. Sure they wanted women who were perfect everything and had unreasonable expectations, but what really got me is this woman, Patti, has no freaking clue what men actually want. She thinks she does, of course. Being that the matchmaking service is LA-based, looks matter a lot (even more than they would elsewhere.) At the beginning of the show they film her going through a series of headshots and she says “definitely not” to a women who is wearing glasses. You can’t see the photo up close, but the women certainly doesn’t look fugly. She just doesn’t have a glamor shot like some of the other girls. Given the right makeup, hair stylist and photographer, her pic would probably look just as “hot” as these other girls.

Meanwhile, this women definitely has a very narrow concept of attractiveness (ironically, she’s very unattractive). Redheads? They’re out. She even asked a redhead if she’d dye her hair brown.

The only thing I’ll give them credit for is that they did want to get women with an education. In the end, though, this proved difficult. And too much education wasn’t good either. They’d take women of top-notch pedigree (a graduate of the Ivies, etc) but not someone who used Dr. in front of their name while introducing herself.

Episode one featured two men… #1 “Sex Toy Dave” – a millionaire who made bank by selling – you guessed it – sex toys. On the Internet. His snazzy house featured such things as a view and a stripper pole in the middle of the living room (awesome). Of course, Patti wanted the stripper pole gone. Her interior designer suggested moving all sex related things to a “sex toy room.”

Ultimately the gal Dave picked, who I must say was actually a relatively good choice for him, was not offended by the stripper pole (though she was a little good two shoes and was slightly off put by it. She wouldn’t try it out herself.)

Meanwhile, the other guy was an older (46 year old) options trader. A Yale grad. He was a bit disillusioned with the type of gal he should be with. Patti wants to get these guys “younger” girls, but not with a 20 year age difference.

But her method of natural selection seems to go against this. She put the two men in a room with a dozen or so women and let them all have at it. The most impressive women got asked out on solo dates with the two guys.

Mr. Options Trader picked out a very hot, young brunette with blue eyes. Sex Toy Dave chose a women who seemed really cool. She had the Ivy pedigree, a great smile, she was laid back, and pretty but not in a porn star sort of way.

Still, in the end the pair didn’t work out. He was too much of a party boy for her.

I don’t really understand why these men spend thousands upon thousands of dollars asking this woman to find the perfect women for them. Maybe they’ll get laid (though that’s against the rules until they’re in a committed relationship) but find the perfect woman, i’m not so sure.

First off, any women who wants to be in the “Millionaire’s Club” is in it for the wrong reasons. Unless you literally find women on normal dating sites and think they’re perfect for someone rich, and ask them to join the “club” without the intention of marrying rich, you will get gold diggers and more gold diggers. Do these men really want that? Eh, maybe they do. They have all this money and sometimes it’s nice to spend it on designer clothes for your special lady. I guess.

I think if it weren’t for Patti, this show wouldn’t be quite so offensive to me. But she’s just a nightmare. She wants the men to change for women who she think would make good wives and mothers. What ever happened to pay someone to find someone who might like you for the way you are? Or… you know… just find them.

Patti’s club website: The Millionaire’s Club, is subtitled: Where successful men come to meet their beautiful and intelligent wives as girlfriends. Honestly, the site looks skanktastic. It’s one step above escort service.

Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton, and the Destruction of America

When I was little, and when I was not so little, all I dreamed about was being a celebrity. It was the end all of success. As a celebrity, you’d be praised for being unique (albeit slightly unique), and everyone would love you.

Fast forward to a reality check… those celebs that find themselves on the covers of the gossip rags often once were the same ones that I’d envy, except their lives and careers had spilled sour.

Poor Britney Spears. She certainly has some kind of mental condition, and it’s obvious that it’s not helped by being smothered by Paparazzi everywhere she goes. Her family (that is, parents and sibling) are apparently not the most stable bunch, but Britney made it big with some spunk and rock hard abs. Could she sing? Well, not really. She could hit the right notes and had a voice that you couldn’t forget, for better or worse. But Britney had what we all wanted… innocence with a serving of sex appeal. Even if we hated her music, we wanted to be Britney… or like Britney. Same goes for Lindsey Lohan. We saw both of these girls when they actually were young and innocent (well, so they’d like us to believe). And then… well, they’ve grown up in the spotlight, and it seems that spotlight was just a bit too bright.

It’s unfortunate, but I think we need celebrities like that to use for public floggings, as otherwise the rest of us minions would think that their lives were perfect because they were rich. Apparently, money doesn’t heal all wounds. Sometimes it’s pouring fuel on an already painful flame.

I feel for Britney and Lindsey. They feel like it’s part of their job and their image to go out and party. To be a young celebrity in Hollywood. Only when drugs enter into the picture, you lose control. I’ve seen friends get eaten up by drugs, and it certainly is just as much a problem in Hollywood… where celebrities have enough money to overdose daily on the most gourmet offerings of the latest designer drug batch.

But who could blame them for needing that rush? If as Americans we hold celebrities on the top of the totem pole of what we wish we could be (which I assume is the case for other people too, since celebrities are still featured on the covers of magazines, and talking about celebrities has made stars of once-Internet-nobodies like Perez Hilton, those GoFugYourself girls, etc) then once you’ve made it to stardom… what’s left? Better party it up when the going’s good.

Not all celebrities turn into psychotic drug addicts, of course, but those that do surely get the most press. Is it good for their careers? If they can make a sober comeback, possibly. Everyone wants to root for the fallen celebrity, despite how much he or she may make fun of this person. If a celebrity truly falls from their divine status and cannot return, then that pops the fantasy of flawed perfection.

Truth is… Britney, Lindsey… they’re just human. Sure they happened to have been born with extra lovely looks, and with some luck and being in the right place at the right time, they guaranteed themselves a future in show business.

It’s funny how easy it is to forget that what they do is their JOB. Sure it’s a pretty awesome job that pays well, but so is being the CEO of your own corporation, or a successful venture capitalist. The job comes with a lot of negatives as well. Privacy? Forget it. You’re working around the clock as a celebrity. From the moment you leave your house to the second you shut the door and close the curtains.

Accepting this changes my extreme, almost obsessive desire to become famous. Or, now I’d like to become famous for writing something brilliant… doing something interesting… but I don’t know if I’d want to be so (un)fortunate to be one of Hollywood’s young actresses. If you’ve got one life to live, there’s not perfect way to live it. If you’re rich, you have nothing to work for. You’ve been raised on attention, so you need to work for the attention. Look at Paris Hilton. She doesn’t need to work, but she does because without work she’d be just like any other NY socialite.

A few months ago I spent some time with my grandmother who lives in Las Vegas. At breakfast one morning, she spent some time complaining about Hollywood today, saying that everyone these days is ugly. I went through a list of celebrities and she said they’re all ugly (except she liked Halle Berry for some reason). Anyway, I know the idea of “beauty” has changed over time, because a lot of these actor and actresses she found ugly happened to be my personal idea of aesthetic perfection. Still, I get her point — beauty is no longer about health and youth exactly. Sometimes people admire the beauty of those who do lots of coke because Kate Moss chic is unbearably still in.

And all of that makes us, the American public, especially the female half of that, spend oodles of money trying to make ourselves look like these people who have lots of money. It’s a vicious cycle of consumerism that is at the heart of America. Capitalism would still exist without celebrity, but what would it look like?

I’m not sure of the answer. In college, I took a class called the “sociology of celebrity” and it was by far the best class in my four years at school. Dissecting celebrity culture, both from the side of the everyman and the celebrity, is understanding America.

I actually read the entire textbook from cover to cover…