To first address the most prominent critique of MTV’s highest-rated television show: The Hills is only as surreal as reality. Sure, one-time galpals Lauren “L.C.” Conrad and Heidi “backstabbing, boy-crazy, ‘feminist hero’” Montag didn’t actually meet aspiring rock groupie Audrina Partridge poolside at their condo—MTV producers did. But is this less “real” than how friendships are “organically” formed? Social positioning, fate, friends of friends, third actor needed to complete a soon-to-be-uber-famous trio of plastic LA. scenesters for super popular reality show – what’s the difference? One way or another, Lauren really met Audrina, right? Right. And from there, a bizarre cultural history was formed, and a show both beloved and bemoaned: a vaguely-scripted half hour of reality television marketed as melodrama but resembling reality most closely in how goddamn mundane it really is. So why—four years and eight and a half seasons later—are we still watching?

The first camp of Hills fans are Those Who Idolize Lauren Conrad. For these girls and gay boys, L.C. is an admirable everygirl; she is Odysseus – a sweet job and a perfect boyfriend are her Troy – navigating the rocky seas of glamorous L.A. (filmed like big-budget cinema verité). Social-climbers like Heidi act as forces of evil, and now Lo, long-time bestie, has positioned herself as the Iago of The Hills. The Lo-west paid cast member with the face of a friend but a serpent tongue, Lo is turning Audrina into a dark angel and further alienating the already-socially-scarred Lauren. Poor girl. A relatable heroine, L.C.—privileged and beautiful—somehow paints herself as the victim in every social and romantic circumstance, making her endearingly vulnerable while still enviable.

The second camp of Hills fan are those who know that she is neither – Those Who Criticize Lauren Conrad. For these viewers—a majority—The Hills is an exercise in critical analysis, allowing even the dimmest-witted-least-intellectually-aspiring college girl to make astute social commentary on someone else’s life. (Lo is a bitch! Lauren’s so self-pitying! She’s definitely not over Brody. This is scripted!). This is apt since Lauren Conrad is the first and, at $75,000 an episode, most successful careerist in the class of Celebrity as Livelihood—she deserves the flack. For all Julia Allisons must take their place at the target of a bull’s eye in order to further achieve. And, as these types go, Lauren handles herself gracefully. Always smiling, smirking, and silently introspecting, she allows the season-long narrative arcs focused on easily-solvable non-issues to meander along. Since, depending on how you look at it, nothing or everything actually happens on The Hills, the plot of which is centered around pro-longed sexual or social tensions, you don’t have to be inherently intellectual to analytically interpret it. So, as we further Lauren’s odyssey, trudging her ship on into the rocky waters of season four, it remains up to you—viewer, voyeur that you are—to fill in the dead-air with your commentary. It’s the YouTube of the boob tube, no po-mo.