Investigative reporters have uncovered a surprising fact about an infamous “celebrity” couple: they are little more than a thoroughly planned experiment in the study of celebritism in America. Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, or “Speidi,” as the entertainment media has dubbed them, are in actuality Livia Joseph and Dennis Plax, graduate students and researchers at the University of Southern California’s Department of Psychology. “We’re surprised it lasted this long,” confesses Dr. Nigel Plotkin, the head of the group that devised the experiment. “If anything, it’s refreshing that the media finally uncovered our ruse; it does well to buck the trend of lackluster investigative reporting these days.”
According to the report, the team at USC originally devised the experiment during a period between 2005 & ‘06, utilizing the MTV program The Hills as a launching pad. “[MTV] was our first big hurdle,” stated Livia Joseph, who at the time was an undergrad student at USC. “They were completely oblivious and fell for it perfectly, so we knew we could use them as a springboard for this exercise.” Articulate and cultured in real life, Livia is the antithesis of the now-revealed-as-character Heidi Montag. “What I wanted to do was to fabricate a character so absolutely lacking in talent or even basic intellect…someone undeserving of anything that would be given to them. I just never dreamed we would get the results we were looking for.”
The results, as we’ve learned, was to prove the hypothesis that a person or persons could ascertain to the perceived heights of celebrity in modern American society without any real accomplishments or even basic worth to that society. “We had noticed a shift in the paradigm of celebrity and fame in America, to much chagrin,” states Dr. Plotkin. “It used to be that those who sought fame did so through the success of their endeavors, that celebrity was usually a byproduct of what they were tying to achieve or contribute to our society. Nowadays it’s as if people seek to aspire to celebrity simply for the sake of, with no real desire to contribute to the betterment of anything. So, we devised this experiment – A process in which we would create these two ‘individuals’ – Characters taken to such an extreme that not only would they be of little use to society, they would just be horrible, horrible people. The fact that they were able to parlay appearances on some gutter 'reality' program into entering the pop culture mindset through media manipulation not only proves us correct, it shows that the media itself contributes much to this disturbing trend.”
“It’s almost bittersweet,” laments Dennis Plax, the man behind the Spencer Pratt persona. “We put a lot into this, but it’s sad to see it was so successful…I mean, there were times when we said ‘they’re on to us, they know we’re worthless and they’re gonna start ignoring us any day now’ – But it never happened. People just remained fixated on us and every pathetic action we perpetrated.”
“Like when I did that pop record,” Livia adds. “We purposely tried to make it as horrible as possible, a scatological piece of worthless drivel.”
Results aside, Dr. Plotkin says he could not have been more pleased with the performances both Dennis and Livia gave in the experiment. “They were phenomenal in their portrayals. The arrogance, the false sense of entitlement…they nailed it. Dennis in particular – he went out of his way to study each scenario carefully and give the response that he knew would irritate and annoy as many people as possible. It was beyond brilliant.”
With the experiment concluded and the characters of Spencer and Heidi retired for good, people are wondering what lies in the future for Dennis and Livia. “We’d just like to return to our lives as graduate students at USC,” Livia tell us. “We’re done acting like clown on parade.” Dennis adds, “We’ve actually received several offers to pen books, and even host a program on the E! Entertainment channel. We just politely decline and tell them we’d like to focus more on our work.”
“Now THAT is irony,” Dr. Plotkin chuckles.
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