Replacing reality with nothingness

If I could punch a TV show in the face, it would have to be “The Hills After Show.” Not “The Hills” itself, mind you. I love that show. But do I really need a couple of pedantic hacks to tell me about a show I just watched? Of course not, nobody does. Worse yet, I’m convinced that the emergence of shows about shows signifies the downfall of popular culture, and ultimately, the dumbing down of our entire society.

Let me digress and assure you that the arc of this column will go from a diatribe on the stupid and idiosyncratic to the nerdy and ultimately existential. If this rhetorical roller coaster is just too much for you, then I’m sure there are some folks on MTV with very nice hairstyles and vests ready to placate you with highlights from “The City” (which actually isn’t bad so far).

This criticism doesn’t just come out of thin air. The theoretical premise of Steven Johnson’s book “Everything Bad Is Good For You” says that television shows, and by extension popular culture, have gotten smarter. Watching complex serial dramas like “The Sopranos” challenges viewers by weaving multiple story arcs in ways “Starsky and Hutch” never did. I love anything that justifies more TV-watching, but the counter to this thesis could only mean that “The Hills After Show” is slowly killing us all.

How is it possible for me to be so irritated by this program when I absolutely love other talking-head shows such as “Pardon the Interruption” ““ a sports commentary show featuring two cantankerous curmudgeons? The only answer I came up with is that “The Hills After Show” is a show about a show about nothing ““ and not “nothing” in the Seinfeldian context ““ “Pardon the Interruption” is a show about shows (in this case, televised sports) that are something. Of course, some think of sports as societally irrelevant competitive escapism, and those folks are probably not “Pardon the Interruption” fans.

Similarly, it’s tempting to put “The Soup” in the same category as “The Hills After Show.” But not so fast. “The Soup” is a show about the parts of shows that mean nothing, assembled mockingly as if to say “these things are stupid.” “The Hills After Show” deconstructs a single show as if it wants you to think the events from “The Hills After Show” are global, sociohistorical milestones.

If an alien race observed the aggregate broadcast transmissions from our planet a la the movie “Contact,” there’s a good possibility they might think Heidi and Spencer are the queen and king of planet Earth. Even I, an enthusiastic viewer, understand that “The Hills” is a fictional drama, removed from reality. Debating this is almost as ridiculous as questioning the merit of sport.

There are other examples of how pop culture threatens to steer us further and further away from the things that matter. A lot of my fears could also pertain to loyal denizens of the “World of Warcraft,” “Second Life” or any of the other massively multiplayer online role-playing games. What is the net opportunity cost of spending time in these virtual worlds? I know a lot of really smart people who love “WoW.” Fourth-year economics student Jeff Susca is one of them.

“I think the appeal is just like that of any other video game. … It’s a relatively inexpensive way to entertain yourself,” said Susca, who downloaded the trial version of “WoW” after discovering an abundance of free time at the end of fall quarter and was instantly hooked. “The sense of accomplishment can approximate that of doing things in the real world. I don’t think that it should, but it does.”

As surprising as it may be, the countless hours logged online and virtual economies created confirm that time invested in “Second Life” can actually lead to the kind of happiness and personal fulfillment available in people’s primary lives. But what is the net opportunity cost of spending time in these virtual worlds? If not for this, could we have cured cancer by now? Or less hypothetically, can time invested in “Second Life” actually lead to the kind of happiness and personal fulfillment available in people’s primary lives?

I wouldn’t be surprised if the answer to either of these questions is yes, which is, perhaps, the scariest thing. Twentieth-century French philosopher Guy Debord would likely back me up on this. Among the many views Debord espouses in “The Society of the Spectacle,” one is the belief that the media and celebrity culture enable a cyclical process of autonomous cultural regurgitation, and the resulting divergent reality skews toward consumption of what is essentially nothing. In other words, shows such as “The Hills After Show” are giant distractions ““ like “soma” from Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.”

But maybe that criticism is a bit much for obsessive “Hills” fans and inhabitants of MMORPG virtual worlds. Think about the interests of these two populations as a Venn diagram. I’d hope there would be at least some overlap so they’d have things to talk about in the actual world. Somehow, I doubt it, and media inventions such as “The Hills After Show” diminish our relationship to the real world and each other. Now if you’ll excuse me, Colbert is on.

E-mail Aikins at [email protected]. Send general comments to [email protected].