"We're gonna take 'em down! We're gonna take 'em down!"

"We're gonna take 'em down
in numbers one by one!"

The first time I encountered My Super Sweet 16, it was being parodied on Saturday Night Live. Scarlett Johansson was doing an excellent impression of a rich teenager freaking out over minor birthday party glitches. ("This is worse than the HOLOCAUST!") It was funny because I figured it was all a joke. A TV program like this couldn't exist outside a sketch comedy series, right? Kids don't throw tantrums like this and get away with it in real life, do they?

I once saw part of an episode of MSS16 that revolved around two wealthy East Indian girls. I cringed -- oh, lord, not brown people, too -- like South Asians couldn't be spoiled. The younger one actually said "ewww" when she discovered that a purse she'd considered buying cost "only $275," and I heard the loud clicking of shame bearing down on an ENTIRE RACE.

I know I'm one of the people who's basically making the bed for shit like this, probably every time I hit E! Online. The curiosity is morbid, which reminds me of an Italian proverb that a man named Berard referenced in an A.V. Club blog comment: After the game, the king and pawn go into the same box. Anyone up for a class war?

TRACK LISTING: You Say Party! We Say Die!, "The Gap"