Sweet 16 and Spoiled Rotten

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