The Paris Hilton Saga, Chapter 37

I can sum up the totality of America’s social problems with one sentence: Paris Hilton’s DUI arrest constituted national news. I’m not talking about 24 hour cable news blather either, but real, hardcore, Katie Couric third day on the job, in your face evening news. Should I be surprised? Probably not, but I am. When this story “broke” early in the morning, of course it was going to make the cable wire. They’ve got 24 hours of news to fill; it doesn’t take much to get on Fox News, MSNBC, or CNN; this much I know is true. The story seemed to snowball throughout the day though, and part of me started to think that it had a shot at cracking network coverage. At first, I figured there was no chance that the big, semi-legitimate news anchors would waste precious minutes of their scant half hour on Paris Hilton coverage (unless she died) but I was dead wrong. There it was: Paris Hilton’s DUI, it was like the third story. Unbelievable. The funniest thing is that it wasn’t that big of a deal. She didn’t crash her car into a pregnant mother’s womb or run over a kid on a tricycle. She blew a 0.08, which is nothing. Her 98-pound frame just needs to be in the vicinity of booze and her blood alcohol will crack the legal limit.

Confounding the whole damn thing was her weird lawyer who offered up one of those, “Yes, she was wrong, but everything’s been blown out of proportion” spiels (which just happened to be true), but all the while displaying a smile that said, “You idiots, Paris Hilton is so rich, like she gives a crap about any of this.” I was simultaneously angered and amused by this clip, which of course was picked up by every cable station and run four times an hour, every hour, all day long.

I have my own theory on the matter. Paris Hilton had just released a new CD that basically bombed in its first week in the stores and, even worse for Paris, nobody was even talking about how bad it did; nobody was talking about her music at all. This had to have been devastating for our country’s premier, professional media whore. She needed a story and she needed one fast. So, after a video shoot, it only took one wine cooler and a swervy curvy drive through Beverly Hills to get it done. 8 hours later, the world had their “Paris Hilton, who just released her first album, was arrested late last night” story. She was on the big map once again (NOTE: Paris Hilton has never been totally lacking in the media attention department. Tracking her every move has become a full time job for thousands of internet junkies worldwide. The “big map” is another story all together though; my parents, along with a lot of Americans’ parents, are on the “big map”. It basically consists of every person who doesn’t scour the internet for cheap celebrity tabloid shit. In other words, good people. Consumers.)

At this point, I could take this article in one of two directions.

Direction #1: I could vent about Paris Hilton’s place in society, pop culture, etc. I could piss and moan about how she doesn’t “do” anything and how her shitty record is just a guise.

Direction #2: I could defend Paris Hilton’s right to exist on any cultural map (big or small) and make a comment like “You know what, I don’t care that it’s probably plagiarized, “Stars are Blind” is a catchy tune.”

But I’m going to throw a knuckleball and do neither. There’s enough people out there with Paris Hilton opinions and while I realize that writing an article about her doesn’t exactly exclude me from this massive demographic, I am going to start a new, right here, right now. Today is the day I stop talking, thinking or reading about Paris Hilton. I swear. Unless she dies.