Why is it ...

... that in my almost daily perusals of Go Fug Yourself, I--almost invariably--have never heard of the parties in question--except through internet snarkage?

I clearly do not watch enough television and need to get off my LAZY BLOGGING ASS and watch some NOW.

Because Jessica Simpson? Alanis Morrisette? Bai Ling? Sienna Miller? Anyone from the cast of Lost/Survivor/Desperate Housewives/Le Hot Show du Jour? PARIS HILTON? I've never seen them in action doing whatever it is they supposedly do. I've only seen them on my laptop.

(Actually, it just occurred to me that a large part of Paris Hilton's fan base has probably learned all it needs to know about her from their laptops, too.)

But I mean, even the clean stuff, people. The commercial where a bikini-clad Paris Hilton ate a huge hamburger while hosing down a car? I saw it--a postage-stamp-sized version--via QuickTime or Real Player--on my laptop.

And mind you, this is not reverse snobbery. I do not embrace my identity as Out-of-It Housewife. I do find it vaguely embarrassing that I basically have no idea who these people are. I mean, for years I was a card-carrying intelLECTual, man--and I was studying mass culture. I was a serious film scholar. I attended lectures by people like Jacques Derrida. And not at gun-point.

So I'm thinking ... if I tore myself away from the internet (and my cookbooks, my collection of etiquette books, my gardening books, my books on how to look 10 pounds lighter and ten years younger, yada yada yada) and took the time to watch these women making an attempt to entertain the public (deliberately, I mean, instead of accidentally) not only would I be less out of it,

I'm sure I'd enjoy the snarkage even more.