Category: TV Shows

As I opened up LinkedIn for the tenth time in the past two weeks, I had a sudden burst of inspiration: put on “The Hills.” For the uneducated, “The Hills” was the tipping point for modern reality TV. After “The OC” dominated the zeitgeist, MTV produced “Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County,” as a way to show the world what it was REALLY like to be a teenager in Orange County, California. Laguna Beach followed the lives of high schoolers Kristin Cavallari and Lauren Conrad, and the drama that comes with growing up, going to high school, and falling in love for all the wrong people. After graduating high school, Lauren Conrad (AKA “LC”) packed up her life and moved to Los Angeles to pursue fashion at FIDM, combined with an internship with Teen Vogue (may she rest in peace).

When I was a tween, going on teen, going on twenty year old, I wanted to be Lauren Conrad. She was the “good girl,” with good sense and great style. I loved that she worked hard, and reaped the benefits that come with hard work in a glamorous world. Spoiler: if you work hard in the fashion industry, EVENTUALLY you get designer clothes and front row seats at fashion week. That said, fashion was never my industry of choice back then. I wanted to be the Lauren Conrad of NBC!

Except, well… did I say “wanted”? I still want that!

So, there I was, sorting through LinkedIn job postings, with “The Hills” playing at the same time. I’ve seen the show at least five times over by now, but I think this is my first time watching in three years. Maybe even four! I don’t know what it was about this viewing, but certain aspects of the show drove me up the wall! I am here to share them all.

1. “The Hills” is available for streaming through Hulu, but Hulu doesn’t have the rights to all the music on the show. When you’re an MTV show, the music is E S S E N T I A L. How do you get “The Hills” and not have the rights to “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield? It’s ICONIC. In the first episode, Lauren has an interview with “Teen Vogue” regarding her internship, and has to get ready and be there in twenty minutes! Her “get ready and go” montage is set to “Pon de Replay” by Rihanna… but when the scene happened on Hulu, THERE WAS NO RIHANNA. WHERE IS MY RIHANNA? To only have rights to half the music on this show, which went in tandem with it’s inspiration (“The OC”) in terms of defining indie/pop punk music in the mainstream is such nonsense.
2. This isn’t so much a complaint as it is a notice on the passing of time: back in the early-oughts when this show was popular, LC and the gang were PEAK fashion. They were style icons. Their look now seems so faded! Nothing against them, because again, at the time this style was THE way you wanted to dress, but the eyebrows are so thin, there’s no contouring, black eyeliner on bottom and top, graphics sewn into the back pockets of jeans! I want to dress like this for a week IRL and see what people say. To be fair, I was heavily inspired by Lauren’s look and I think I still carry shades of what she wears even now. I’d say her style on the show is either dated (it was more than ten years ago) or classically pretty (how I attempt to dress now). There’s no in between! “Fashions fade, but style is forever.”
3. Now let’s get to the meat and potatoes: THE FAKENESS OF THIS SHOW IS H I T T I N G ME THIS REWATCH. In the pilot, Lauren is assigned one job at a Teen Vogue party: guard the VIP table, and don’t let anyone sit there. At all. Not only does she help her bff/roommate Heidi sneak in with her bf and their friends, she lets them sit at the VIP table! She gets caught, and things are made worse when Heidi gets into a drunken argument with her boyfriend at the party. Lauren’s bosses sternly say “We’ll talk about it on Monday,” and she sees no repercussions other than a verbal warning. THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN TODAY. LAUREN WOULD’VE BEEN FIRED ON THE SPOT.
4. Speaking of, Heidi is a piece of work! I had always liked Lauren more anyway, but this time around I find Heidi’s behavior even worse! Lauren and Heidi move to LA together to attend FIDM and be roommates, but Heidi skips the first day, and even drops out before attending a single class after getting a job. I get that school isn’t for everyone, but to drop out before even giving it a try! If you agree to go to school with a friend, you should at least stick it out for a semester. The job she gets is with a PR firm, and she expects that the role will let her be working in popular clubs, essentially getting paid to be a party girl. She is devastated and shocked to find that it’s a 9-5 assistant job of stuffing envelopes, answering phones, and getting lunches for the boss. At one point, she asks another girl working next to her what she does for the company, to which the other girl responds “I’m an intern, but I go to school full time at FIDM”. Heidi quietly replies “Oh… I just dropped out of there.” It’s just wild to me! She gets so frustrated that her day is spent doing remedial tasks, and thankfully someone sort of puts her in her place and tells her that she has to pay her dues before she gets to the fun stuff. I’ve been in the “paying my dues” phase of my career for four years, and Heidi wants to quit after one day! When she finally gets to work in the club at an event, she balks at it because it’s her and her boyfriend’s six-month anniversary! She’s twenty years old! I would have been thanking my lucky stars and making plans for the night before and the weekend after for my anniversary. The privilege and lack of gratitude. To have MTV connect you with an opportunity and to not send thank you notes for eternity. I CANNOT IMAGINE.

For all of this, though, this show is still just ADDICTING. It’s like a 2000s era time capsule. With that, I’m going to watch one episode right now, and then go do some productive busywork.

The rest? Is still unwritten.