Oh, Real World.

I think every generation has a different benchmark they measure themselves by when it comes to knowing you might actually be a "grown up."

Some might say it's when you start paying your own bills. I've been doing that for a few years though, and still tend to feel like a ten-year old most of the time, based on my proclivity for fart jokes and eating ice cream straight from the carton.

Or maybe it's when you have your first grown-up relationship; but nah, because, speaking of farts, my ex and I used to have actual fart contests (note: he always won, that guy's ass was like a nuclear weapon).

Your first real, big, grown-up, non-cosigned-by-the-parents purchase (house, car, etc)? Well, I actually haven't gotten to that one yet. So far my biggest non-cosigned purchase has been my furniture. It's nice furniture and all, and it was pretty expensive for my budget (especially at the time I bought it), but it hardly counts as much as say, a brand new car. Or a condo.

So I'm creating my own benchmark: I am too fucking old to watch The Real World. I don't understand how real grown-ups can watch this show and not want to:

a) Pray for the future of humanity
b) Wonder if I was that big an asshole when I was twenty (even though even at twenty I didn't have big giant fake tits and a perfect flat stomach and a cute-little ass that both hung out of my bathing suit and made me feel superior to the world all at the same time--a Wonder Ass!)
c) Cut a bitch

The latest batch just started. Gripe one: Why set it in Sydney but not cast any actual people from Australia? They might actually be interesting. Instead, it's just obnoxious American jackholes. What I hate about The Real World is that even the "nice" ones are jerks.

Example: Parisa. She seems cool, and there's no doubt her little in-house rival Kellyanne is a beast from hell. And I totally felt for her when one of the beetches was trashing some poor immigrant woman for not being able to speak English well--because Parisa's family is made up of immigrants from Iran.

But? She is dealing with them all the wrong way. You can't deal with slutasswhorebitches (tm my college friend Jen) by trying to play their game (ie; being a bitch). You deal with them by staying calm and letting everyone see that they don't have a skinny ass leg to stand on.

Why am I analyzing it this much?

There's this scene in "Shallow Hal," one of the more underappreciated movies in the Farrelly brothers repetoire, in which Jack Black is wondering why Gwyneth Paltrow is so funny and awesome and has such a great personality--you know, since she's so hot (since he doesn't know that she's actually 300-pounds).

His friend calls it "Ugly Duckling Syndrome," that she was ugly as a kid and dind't get hot until she grew up, so she was forced to grow a personality to get by.

This is a sick generalization, of course, and no, I'm not saying that an incredibly attractive girl can't also be funny and awesome (I'm friends with plenty of girls meeting that description).

But when I see chicks like the complete bitchfaces that populate shows like the Real World? It starts to get a little merit. When you get everything you want based solely on the pert nature of your overly tanned ass cheeks, you don't have to worry about things like, oh, being a decent human being. You can be the biggest AssBeast on the planet, and you'll still have people wanting to hang out with you, because it's human nature to be drawn to the beautiful among us--the externally as well as the internally (I assume--how else can we account for Meatloaf having had actual wives?).

And no one is denying these Real World bitches are beautiful. In that generic hot chick way (there are probably 148,000 other skanks that look just like Kellyanne and have the same exact poor attitude as she does--they probably just picked the one most likely to pick on immigrants to add a little something extra).

And I don't automatically rule a girl out of the FuFriendWorthy lotto just because she's hot shit. After all, those of us who are hot shit have to stick together (even those of us who are hot shit with, um, fat rolls).

But if there is one thing that makes me morph into a cartoon angry bull with steam coming out of my nostrils, it's when "Hot Chicks" justify their heinously bitchy actions (which normal people have had the gall to call them out for) by claiming that people are "just jealous."

This makes the veins in my neck pop out to Barry Bonds proportions and just reinforces every bad stereotype about Pretty Girls. It makes me pissed off on behalf of my friends who look every bit as good as Kellyanne in a bikini but who are also smart and interesting and wonderful people to those around them.

"But but but editing!"

Whatever. Whatever. Editing can make someone look like a bigger bitch than they may really be, and that very well may have happened here. But it can't make people say some of the shit that comes out their mouths.

WHY AM I WATCHING THIS SHOW!?

Hate!

(This all being said, I really kind of love Shavon, the girl with the breast implants the size of my head. She is hilarious. And the guy with the insanely thick Southern accent who is the second coming of Country Jon, except the exact opposite in every way except the accent (ie, he's the shiznit). And his name is Cuthoffer or some shit. No really, that's his name.)