Sweet 16 and Spoiled Rotten

By Ana Marie Cox

In the future, everyone will be famous for $15,000. WITH the emergence of a whole industry devoted to re-creating celebrity culture for anyone who can afford it, fame is a commodity like any other, although it's true that no matter how much you spend, you'll probably sacrifice your dignity as well.

Actually, $15,000 is a lowball estimate, since that would barely cover the event-space rental tab for the kind of lavish spectacles that have become prime-time fare on MTV's highly rated My Super Sweet 16. The show documents the excesses of privileged youths commemorating the mighty achievement of making it through their 16th year. Shell-shocked parents--always uttering the mantra "It was worth it"--typically peel off checks for upwards of $200,000. We learn that from the Sun Belt to Erie, Pa., the lack of taste knows no ethnic, religious or cultural bounds. You give teenagers $200,000, and they will spend it exactly as you would expect. The parties are the aesthetic equivalent of Hilary Duff MP3s.

Every culture has its coming-of-age rituals. A child is inducted into the adult realm through a transformative experience, whether it's becoming more steeped in religion or killing a deer or having a vision. It's true that I would be happy to send any of the children of My Super Sweet 16 into the desert by themselves for a while. Their blingy flings are not celebrations of accomplishment; they're celebrations of self. What used to mark the end of childhood now seems only an excuse to prolong the whiny, self-centered greediness that gives infantile a bad name. Far from joining polite society like the debutants of the past, the kids gleefully rip through social graces, alienating friends and sacrificing tact all in the name of creating a VIP room filled with people too young to drive themselves home.

The protagonists' excesses alone make for lurid, enjoyably outraged viewing. (Surely one celebrant's decision to dye her poodles pink should have prompted a call to the A.S.P.C.A.) A precocious celebutant makes her entrance via helicopter. A self-proclaimed "divo" (like diva but different) rents out the mall to stage a faux fashion show (prompting a backstage catfight over a limited supply of bustiers). There are hired dancers, a raj-like litter hoisted by hand-picked hotties and an apparent contractual obligation for someone to arrive in a stretch Hummer. I had no idea so many stretch Hummers even existed. No wonder we had to go to war in Iraq.

The series is like an infomercial for class war, and should the revolution come, an episode guide will provide a handy, illustrated list of who should go up against the wall. My Super Sweet 16 had its third-season premiere last week, building up to the broadcast with a drumroll of conspicuous consumption: four two-hour blocks of episodes drawn from the show's previous seasons. To witness such unself-conscious acquisitiveness in one sitting is like eating an entire normal-kid birthday-party sheet cake, wax decorative candles and all. There's the same queasy sense of monochromatic excess because all the shows are alike, from the fake panic that the party may not happen to the scary-sexy dry humping on the dance floor. And no matter what the nominal theme of the party--California beach party, Moulin Rouge, the color pink--each guest of honor is really after only one thing. "I feel famous. I love it," says one. Another: "I definitely felt like I was famous." Yet one more: "I felt like such a star." The teenagers take on all the tics of fame, from tiny dogs to referring to oneself in the third person. We are all Paris Hilton now.

My Super Sweet 16 isn't even the most visible or popular iteration of our democratized just-in-time celebrity culture. Club Libby Lu, a fast-growing chain of mall stores owned by Saks, provides the setting and accessories for elaborate makeover parties for girls as young as 4 at a relatively reasonable $21 a head. They can strut down a catwalk, don mock Madonna headset microphones and pester their parents to buy Role Model perfume or a LOCAL CELEBRITY T shirt. It would be easy to bemoan the trend as the end of childhood or the corruption of innocence. But the hunger for recognition doesn't end with the acquisition of a driver's license. As popular culture divides into ever more finely split niches, with Yahoo Groups and blogs touting the cream of whatever subculture you can think of a domain name for, famous is just a matter of answering your e-mail.

The irony, of course, is that the easier it is to become famous--whether in a really famous fashion or simply as a queen for a day--the more irrelevant the meaning of celebrity becomes. As a diminutive diva on My Super Sweet 16 guilelessly observes, "We're like celebrities but not famous." Exactly. Autographs, please.

Ana Marie Cox writes a weekly column that appears on time.com