After months upon months of eagerly anticipating The Hills final season premiere, it has come and as always, I am so disappointed in myself for how excited I get about it. It is a horrible horrible show and continues to progressively sink lower with its morals every season (if it had any to begin with), yet somehow I can't stop watching and can't stop caring. I grew up glued to Laguna Beach from its very beginnings and felt a weird sort of connection with these kids that I had absolutely nothing in common with except for the fact that I was of the same age (LC's class). This one detail forged a strange sense of belonging as I watched them deal with the high school drama, walk at their graduations, and start new lives in new cities (spinoffs galore). I however, was homeschooled, had only the drama of the skating world (people over 40), and still have yet to walk at a graduation of any sort. I experienced through them, the things I thought I was missing out on by not being a typical teenager.
Characters came and went as the show basically moved to the Hills (I don't think anyone cared about season 3 of Laguna Beach with the annoying little siblings left behind) and the world watched as the high school drama was blown up into tabloid fodder and shocking Enewsworthy scandal. I still watched. Hey, it wasn't MY drama and watching it reminded me how grateful I was that it WASN'T. This season though, the show just makes me sad. Heidi looks like Spencer's Frankenstein creation (it's frightening), Kristin is accused of being a crackhead, Brody is as dumb as ever, and even Lo, who I used to love because she tried to stay slightly in the background, looks like she's getting a kick out of the drama and even creating it intentionally. It still isn't my drama but this stuff, in my opinion, shouldn't be ANYONE'S drama. I know that it's supposed to be "reality" tv and that most people argue that it's fake and staged, but real or not, I think it's sad that these people willingingly make their lives resemble that of a circus sideshow.
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Nice post. Interesting that it drew you to it even when it was so different from your experience. As you said, it interpellated you as a teen (or twentysomething). I'm sure a lot of the teens drawn to it are drawn because of the glamorous image it projects (be it actually gross or not) and now how it actually reflects their lives. It's a vicarious thrill. Perhaps for you, that thrill wore off.
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