<p>Has any one seen this TV show about rich kids’ obscenely, extravagant birthday parties? I don’t know the name of the show; in fact I’ve only seen it once. D and her friends were watching it this summer. They loved it, while I was at first speechless and then appalled. At the end of the show the girl’s dad said he spent over 50K on the party plus the girl got a diamond Rolex and a new sports car.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what is upsetting me more :eek:: this stupid show or the fact D enjoys watching it.</p>
<p>i have seen it, Sweet 16, and my D knew a girl in it (a friend of the BDay girl)</p>
<p>What she said was that alot of it was “dramatized”- ie, one girl already had a great dress, but the show paid for them to go to Paris to “shop” and get snooty…lots of acting going on</p>
<p>It is gross, the cars, the $$$, the tackiness…there was one show, however, where the girls raised money for a good charity…but that was the only “nice” one</p>
<p>I find the way they hand of invitations SOOOO tacky…in public like that so they can reject people in front of everyone…blech</p>
<p>“My Super Sweet Sixteen”. It’s shocking and disgusting and much like a horrible accident … you don’t want to watch, but you can’t look away. I wonder what kind of future these kids will have and what will they have to look forward to in the future. Having worked in high school to save for college, and having worked during college to support myself, I have a much better appreciation for things than had I been handed them on a silver platter. </p>
<p>I’ll never forget when my DD was younger and my FIL wanted her to attend a certain private school. DH and I discussed it and decided for a variety of reasons that she would not attend there. Certainly not the determining factor, but one reason we decided against it was because the vast majority of girls there come from very wealthy families. I could just imagine DD’s classmates telling of their plans to visit the south of France for spring break while she replied that she would be going to Opryland (back when it still existed). I saw no reason to throw her in the middle of that environment when she could get just as good, if not better, an education at a private Catholic school she attended.</p>
<p>One episode of the show I watched showed a girl who really, really wanted a convertible sports car for her birthday. She was disappointed when she got an SUV, but then the world was a happy place again when her dad presented her with a “weekend car” … the very convertible sports car she wanted. HMoG, it’s enough to make one puke.</p>
<p>Oh, I used to love watching “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” too. No one really takes stuff life that seriously, except for the few sad people who think money can make you happy. This show is just another version of the same thing.</p>
<p>On the car thing: I was so jealous of the classmate who got a Mercedes 450 SL for her 16th birthday (in 1971). Funny, she’s still driving it! Now there’s a frugal gift.</p>
ha ha…that’s how my two older D’s feel! So, they watch it in utter disgust. As for me, I cannot stomach it AT ALL, so I usually just leave the room. ;)</p>
<p>I happened upon it while wandering through the family room at the wrong moment. About the only comfort I could take was that my son was laughing at the participants (not with them) and that the announcers seemed to think the subjects were pretty ridiculous too. </p>
<p>could some of those girls be anymore horrid…just watching it with my Ds, I flashback to those smae girls in my highschool…its amazing seeing them lying all the time - to their friends and to everyone else</p>
<p>The one episode I watched concerned the 16th birthday of triplets. The dad hired the girls’ favorite band to come play at the party–cost him tens of thousands of dollars (can’t remember the exact cost, the band was moderately famous, my kids had heard of them)! I guess if you spread the cost over 3 girls…</p>
<p>I’m embarrassed to admit I even know this, but there’s actually a similar show called “Daddy’s Spoiled Little Girl” on the WE (Women’s Entertainment?) network. The theme is the same as on “My Super Sweet 16” - spoiled kid manipulates clueless parents (particularly dad) into a jaw-dropping display of crass consumerism. My 16 y/o finds these shows hugely entertaining.</p>
<p>A few points I ponder -</p>
<p>How can Mom and Dad be THAT stupid, after achieving enough success to even consider spending 6 figures on a 16 y/o’s birthday party?</p>
<p>Does the “heroine” of each episode not know how ridiculous she makes herself look, or not care?</p>
<p>Could the whole thing be a gigantic put-on?</p>
<p>I have also wondered whether it is all a put-on, just for teevee.</p>
<p>Although I know that a girl in DS’s grade had a Sweet 16 for 100 kids on a yacht. Then there was the Range Rover that dear daddy provided as a gift for his sweet daughter…all the kids got to goo and gah. </p>
<p>I think such parties are tremendously wasteful and do nothing but further the entitlement attitude of such kids.</p>
<p>My son attends a college full of “my super sweet sixteen”-type students - terrible mismatch and he’s hoping to transfer. I still can’t get over that we didn’t pick up on this ahead of time.</p>
<p>tutus, don’t feel badly. I met someone else who has a son with the same problem. He just transferred. He was at a medium sized private in the south. He has now transferred to a school in Boston.</p>
<p>there are some pretty appalling shows on television, from fear factor to what I hear is a new survivor pitting teams that are divided by race against each other.</p>
<p>Only time I watch tv is at the gym ( when I am on the bikes- I really can’t avoid it)
as viewers get more bored with more conventional shows, I suppose advertisers want something that will attract them, no matter how low they have to go.
(But I also think a lot of them are scripted or at least controlled backstage more than they let on to viewers. For real variety, why don’t we go back to “live” shows? )
Same with some movies- I just saw on the local news website that one production company appears to be advertising " a la’ Blair witch project"
<a href=“http://www.komotv.com/stories/45420.htm[/url]”>http://www.komotv.com/stories/45420.htm</a></p>
<p>In our house, we have pretty much concluded that most of the programming on MTV will rot your brain. Super Sweet Sixteen, Cribs, Real World, Next (especially THIS one),…all horrid. Thank goodness my daughter thinks they are all stupid. Her idea of good tv is House and really old Law and Order reruns (she’s a big Jerry Orbach fan). My idea is Band of Brothers reruns on the History Channel and Without a Trace (btw…buy the Band of Brothers soundtrack…money well spent!).</p>