The Worst Thing on Television

I came across a reality show last night that made me angrier than any television show really has a right to. It's about 16-year-old girls and their Super Sweet Sixteen parties, complete with tiaras and rhinestones and, in some cases apparently, 7 carat diamonds. With these girls, the sky is the limit. Costume changes, rap artists, $5,000 gowns, $100,000 cars. All for one party. Seriously.

I don't know where to start, so I'll just start with the beginning. The show I watched centered around a girl that describes herself as "the pretty, rich girl that always gets what she wants." I'm sorry, but if my child ever describes herself this way, I will consider myself a pathetic failure as a parent.

The opening clips of the show include Miss Sweet Sixteen shopping for a mink coat. The sales person states the cost of the coat at $27,000. The girl's father says, "Whatever you want. It's your world, we just live in it." My jaw hit the floor. The show then moves on to show the girl giving orders to her party planner and saying that she wants all her friends to "know what it's like to be me, for just one day. Because I have an awesome life."

Just to invite her friends to her sixteenth birthday party, she invited them all to her house and had a helicopter drop keys to treasure boxes on the lawn. Each of her friends had their own treasure box with their invitation locked inside. I'd like to know what scheme she cooked up for inviting them all to the pre-party invitation party. If it didn't include hand-delivered invitations in gold leaf, I'll be disappointed.

Later on, she goes shopping for her main party dress. She tries on countless outfits, each shorter than the last and all covered in sparkles. Apparently the sparkles were the key. I lost track of how many times she gushed, "Oooh, I just love all the sparkles." Finally, it comes time to choose one party dress: the sparkly green one or the sparkly beige one. She agonizes, "This is the hardest decision of my life!" before deciding on the beige one. Her mother forks over a credit card to the tune of $6270. Miss Sweet Sixteen pronounces it a 'good number.' I'm still trying to figure out exactly what she meant by that.

On the day of the party, tragedy struck. The party planner announced that the costume for her grand entrance might not work if she's going to ride on the elephant. I am not kidding. Something about sparkles and the contraption on the elephant's back. Miss Sweet Sixteen laments, "If this costume doesn't work out, the whole party is going to be a disaster. It has to work. I'm wearing it." Later on, I laughed my butt off when her costume headdress clotheslined her on the streamers over the entrance walk.

The rest of the party went off like you probably expect by now. Hundreds of kids screaming that this is the best party of their young lives, even future parties. Miss Sweet Sixteen doing the bump and grind with half a dozen hungry-for-the-spotlight teen boys. A 6-layer cake that scared Miss Sweet Sixteen half to death with the sparklers and fireworks coming from it. One of the final shots of the party is a boy screaming, "Miss Sweet Sixteen is the most generous girl ever!" Uh, sorry to burst your bubble, but that's not called generosity. It's called attention whoring.

I can't believe the example this television show is encouraging America's teens to emulate. Do we really need to encourage kids to be more selfish? What a waste. I wonder what's going to happen to Miss Sweet Sixteen when the gravy train is gone? I wonder if she'll still think she has "an awesome life?"