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Watching it today, though, it looked... well, it looked kind of mean.

I know, I know: why in the world should we have any sympathy for Paris Hilton? After all, she seemed to come through it fine, and is still just being Paris. Thing is, though, at the time all of this hit, she was a 22-year-old girl going out and getting drunk and doing drugs and sleeping around-which, unless you are lame, is exactly what you were doing when you were 22. The problem with Paris wasn't Paris, it was the amount of attention the media paid to Paris. (Assuming you think Paris Hilton is a less worthy subject of attention than a Hollywood starlet, which seems questionable to me, but again, never mind.) And whether or not she encouraged the attention, the simple fact is that if you had a problem with the media, the target of your complaints should be the media.

But that's not what we did. As in the "South Park" episode, the person we complained about was Paris. Now, I wouldn't particularly want to be friends with Paris, and I am certainly a little peeved that she became this weird monkey's paw of fame who, by simple friendship, could ruin the lives of singers and actors who might have otherwise made it out OK. But, again, neither her behavior nor her existence were particularly abnormal: licentious youth and trust-fund kids have had a robust presence in American society for some time. So why did we all feel OK saying just these incredibly awful, mean things about her? The whole discourse around Paris took on a real Christians-in-the-Colosseum feel. But shit, who cares?

Well, we did. The thing about Paris Hilton is that she embodied a lot of the important social issues of the 00s, like the glorification of affluence, celebrity culture as entertainment and the direction of feminism. Talking about her was a way of talking about these things without having to feel like we were having a real, serious discussion-something that, in America, we avoid at all costs. Pop culture is great for having these proxy wars because it provides a stable, common object of analysis, something we all know about that can serve as a jumping-off point for debates about shared values.

The problem is that when it's a real person, these debates have implications for other real people. The message sent by scarlet-lettering a real person's real actions as an affront to our collective values was that engaging in behaviors which the more liberal amongst us would describe as "having fun" was something you should (still!) be ashamed of. Sure, go ahead and do it-after all, the consumer economy relies on young people "going crazy" in this way-but for God's sake, be quiet about it.

The message of the "South Park" episode was that girls shouldn't use sluttiness (though note the word "whore" in the episode's title) as a way of getting ahead. But that's not what Paris did. She got ahead just by being born. As part of a general trend of glorifying marriage-based paths to success-see also "My Super Sweet 16" and most of the "Real Housewives"-Paris served as a legitimate focal point of debate.

But that's not really what people had a problem with. It was the things Paris did to have fun, like sleeping around and getting wasted. Certainly these are not always good activities, but they're not inherently bad either. I thought we had all agreed on that!

Ultimately, I'm not asking for anyone to have sympathy for Paris Hilton. It's more that I'm reminding myself, I suppose, to keep this in mind the next time a moral panic hits. Think of the children! Elaborate condemnation of the stupid and privileged feels good, I know. But there's always collateral damage. There are lots of awful people in the world, and while I endorse the entertainment value of following their lives, maybe let's save the public flagellation for people who are actively causing other people harm. Lord knows there's no shortage of them.


Mike Barthel has written about pop music for a bunch of places, mostly Idolator and Flagpole, and is currently doing so for the Portland Mercury and Color magazine. He continues to have a Tumblr and be a grad student in Seattle.

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Choire Sicha: Is it ever!

Tom Scocca: Did anyone there notice that Perez Hilton is now more famous than Paris Hilton?

Choire Sicha: I'm not sure if anyone besides the publicists noted that!

Tom Scocca: But the publicists showed they'd noticed?

Choire Sicha: Well there is some anecdotal evidence, such as the post-show release from the horrible gay Canadian twins of "DSquared," in which they touted the appearance of Nicky Hilton and... Perez Hilton.

Choire Sicha: Also anecdotally? He was everywhere... and Paris Hilton was in, like, Stuttgart and Venice? She was actually busy being sued for canceling appearances. Her big fashion week headline? "HILTON FACES CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT OVER ALLEGED EUROPE NO-SHOW."

Tom Scocca: We spend all our time second-guessing publications' output. Time to second-guess the input, isn't it? Shadow Assignment Editors! WHY ALL OF YOU NO HAVE?

Choire Sicha: That is a good point. They were eager, historically, to cover Paris, but they are exceedingly less eager to cover Perez. In part, I think because he has a platform via which to castigate, undermine and rebut? I think publications dislike both Hiltons equally. But they were never afraid of Paris, because she had no editorial product of her own.

Tom Scocca: "Both Hiltons," you say. Apologize to Nicky!

Choire Sicha: Oh I would never. Although! Hilton mania reached such a fever pitch not long ago that I was conscripted to actually write a Nicky Hilton potential cover story for a large New York-based magazine. (One that fortunately never came to... fruition.) And by "not long" I believe I mean 2005 or 2006. Even I, as much as I love the celebrity industrial complex, found this a bit suspect.

Tom Scocca: Possibly Nicky is the Interesting Hilton. At least, there's still a job opening for that slot. But: Perez Hilton is a bigger name that Paris Hilton. Am I the only person who is freaked out by this?

Choire Sicha: I have a metric for you! Paris Hilton on Twitter: 631K followers. Perez Hilton on Twitter: nearly 1.5 million followers.

Tom Scocca: It is like when George W.S. Trow wrote about how contestants on Family Feud were trying to guess what the survey participants had guessed that the average height of an American woman was. Perez Hilton has derived greater fame from Paris Hilton than Paris Hilton had herself derived from being famous for famousness' sake.

Choire Sicha: That is accurate, I think. He leeched it out of her in a really fantastic way! And often he did it by going where she went, and doing what she did... except not by revealing his chest and being what a delusional teen boy would think of as "being sexy." Somehow he didn't need to! That credit goes to his editorial product. Unfortunately, Paris Hilton's editorial product is a failing, disastrous MTV reality show.

Tom Scocca: I only have about 87 GB of open memory here, and that's not enough to hold all the scare quotes that need to go around the word "'["'(reality)'"]'" in that sentence.

Choire Sicha: Well sure. Here is another interesting bit of fact! Perez Hilton is having a very bad income week.

Tom Scocca: Why is that?

Choire Sicha: I do not know why? It may be just the general ebb and flow. But he is only receiving $28,000 worth of ad income this week. [UPDATE: According to the wonderful honcho of BlogAds, there were also some takeover sales this week, though in checking Perez's site I didn't see them. So $28,000 sounds like Perez's floor income. As in, that is basically what he found in quarters on the floor.] Often he rakes in upward of $50,000 a week. Math will tell you that that is $2.6 million a year. So he has only sold small ads this week; most weeks he has also sold ads up top, for $25,000 a week.

Tom Scocca: So what does this combination of fact and cultural observation give us? Who are the advertisers?
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Choire Sicha: Well, the advertisers this time of year, throughout the 4th quarter on the web, are typically entertainment products. Though he also often does well with music products, the end of the year always has an upsurge in movie and TV marketing.

Tom Scocca: What does "product" mean in this context?

Choire Sicha: Oh, you know, "Where the Wild Things Are" or "GI Joe," any kind of product.

Tom Scocca: (This "["{"con/text"}"]".)

Tom Scocca: I'm sort of surprised the chat program didn't turn some of that into emoticons.

Choire Sicha: There are many kinds of products! There is the Perez Hilton Music Tour. Which actually sounds kind of great? Says MTV: "Last-minute surprise act Little Boots hit the stage sans her band mates (they were stuck across town) and performed solo with only a piano to accompany her. She thanked Hilton with a run through a haunting cover of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill"... Self-proclaimed "filthy party band" Semi Precious Weapons killed it. "This is rock and roll – pull your f—ing tits out!" beckoned frontman Justin Tranter...""

Tom Scocca: YouTube.

Choire Sicha: Quite so.

Tom Scocca: So where are Perez's magazine covers?

Choire Sicha: Hmm. On the cover of what magazine would he move newsstand?

Tom Scocca: None! He is repulsive. Yet he is only the elaboration of the logic that put Paris Hilton on the covers.

Choire Sicha: Oh sure, except he doesn't have boobs.

Choire Sicha: Hmm, let me correct that.

Tom Scocca: Yes.

Choire Sicha: Well.

Choire Sicha: Less said the better.

Choire Sicha: I actually don't think Paris Hilton moved magazines either, besides perhaps Us Weekly, for a brief period. I wish Janice Min still worked in the industry right now, she could explain all of this in two sentences.

Tom Scocca: People don't like celebrities. It's more about people feeling compelled to honor the idea of celebrity.

Choire Sicha: But people also actively dislike celebrities. And where Perez succeeded is in being outrageously dislikeable! I think that is his secret.

Tom Scocca: That seems correct. It was a great crossover move to pit himself against whatsername, Carrie Pre-Op, Miss Culture-Wars Martyr of 2008. Or was it 2009?

Choire Sicha: Yes!

Tom Scocca: An incident in which the most substantive person involved was Donald Trump.

Choire Sicha: Yeeessss. That was wonderful for him. Also a great "news" "peg" for publications. Unfortunately for Perez, he will always have the sort of editorial product that announces that Jaclyn Smith is offing herself in Bulrgaria or something. Honduras. Whatever.

Tom Scocca: I don't even know what incident you're talking about.

Choire Sicha: Exactly! How would you! But every tween in Norte Americana does. Amusingly,this involved a bad reading of a Spanish language newspaper.

Tom Scocca: Death is the obstacle on the way to the perfect celebrity-news future. We are about 20 minutes away from being able to gossip about completely computer-generated avatars, which can do almost everything that our current celebrities can do, except for dying awkwardly.

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