My Super Sweet 16

Something appears to have happened while I wasn't paying attention. Lost as it is in the swathe of shitty satellite channels, I rarely tune in to MTV any more. With Zone Horror there's really no need. But I'm sure the last time I tuned into it (and by "tuned" I mean "pressed the button", historic-means-of-telly-channel-finding fans) it actually showed music videos.

Now it seems to have become a channel designed by a committee of people who must really hate me with the sole purpose of making me angry. I can imagine their board room meetings now as they laugh evilly about the next thing that will want me to throw my remote through the screen - one of their engineers fingers paused on "play" as they watch me on a hidden camera waiting for me to tune into MTV.

"Press play now", they cry, "This one'll really fuck him up."

The worst culprit from a bad bunch (with other equally abhorrent shows being Cribs and Pimp My Ride) is "My Super Sweet 16". Now in its 43rd series or something equally unfathomable. It works especially well because it gets me so annoyed I physically lose motor control and am therefore unable to turn the television over, let alone simply mute it.

The basic premise is simple; Young actors and actresses are given the task of auditioning for a role in a forthcoming movie. The role they are going for is that of a completely spoiled brat incapable of registering the slightest bit of gratitude to the ones throwing huge piles of money at them. The modern day Veruca Salts and Mike Teevees stomp and quiver their bottom lips through a variety of scenarios where daddy will only spend 16k on a car and not the 17k for the one that has a mirror in the steering wheel, and at the end of the show they find if they've passed the audition by.. what?

It's REAL?

I care not a jot how developed your empathy gland is. By the end of a half hour slot of this vapid "aspirational" garbage your faith in mankind will have atrophied to such an extent that your once love-and-joy-filled heart will resemble nothing more than a liquorice wheel that's been left out in the sun. 

The real actual premise would appear to be following an individual who has spent most of their life being given exactly what they'd wanted through extremely poor parenting - parents whose idea of rearing a child is throwing enough money at them to keep them quiet.  Although having seen some of these children at the age of 15, I'd throw money at them to keep them away from me as well.  I'd be tempted to make my vast disposable wealth even larger by flogging them to slave traders.  This grotty documentary follows them from their invite giving - usually involving a foam party - a fucking FOAM PARTY - in which invites are dispensed randomly to the lucky ones.  I for one never thought the old method of giving party invites to your actual friends really worked; If only in my youth I'd given them out via some means of lottery.

Every child is, without exception, an absolute knobturd of a human being.  Although having been spoiled rotten since birth, I'm not surprised.  They're either wannabe gangsters or precious little princesses, but all share one thing in common.  They love the sounds of their own voices and are convinced they're semi-famous and way better than they are.  One participant in this evenings show referred to his friends as "fans". I shit you not.

The individual in question was a 15 year old welsh lad called Jordan, who from his mullet had clearly modelled himself on around 70% of the WWF wrestlers from the eighties.  He had intended to do a dance routine on the evening of his party but gave up on this one dance lesson in.  Although from the ghastly sight of Jordan and his fat mate failing at the simplest of moves; I.e. breathing at the same time as walking and not spending all your time looking like a gurning melted waxwork, it was a good job.  And it gave him and his mate (still fat) the excuse to gawp over semi-naked gyrating teenage girls as they auditioned to be his dancers for the big night.  Jordans fat mate had clearly never seen any real girls outside of Loaded magazine before, and his face went so red and inflated I could have sworn he was masturbating under the table.

I take but one small piece of solace from My Super Sweet 16. Every single child in it finds themselves gifted with a "surprise" car - a surprise in every manner except for the fact that the little mewling waste of skin, carbon and DNA chose it in the showroom, usually accompanied by salty spoiled tears. Said car is usually stupidly overpowered for a 16 year old, which means they'll find their fame eventually - only not the same way they expect.

Dying in the same manner of James Dean doesn't make you quite as famous as him now, does it?  DOES IT?  Although I guarantee you'll make the headlines. Although "Spoilt shitcunt scraped from back of landrover" doesn't have quite the same impact as that they'd have expected.

And Daddy will spend a fucking fortune on the funeral.  Which, if you're a friend of the family luckily enough to get your invite in the accompanying foam party, may well attend.