Pimpin’ (yourself) ain’t easy, but is it necessary?

The news all this weekend revolved around Tareq and Michaele Salahi crashing the first state dinner of the Obama Presidency. The couple managed to be photographed with Vice President Joe Biden and Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, and even shook hands with President Barack Obama. My favorite part of the story—and perhaps the most predictable part—is that the Salahis are under consideration to be included in the upcoming Bravo reality series The Real Housewives of Washington.

Reading about this social-climbing couple of media whores and their desire to be reality TV stars, I felt an immediate, visceral, and more than slightly hypocritical revulsion toward the celebrity-industrial complex. After the revulsion passed, I realized that my reaction iteslf didn’t matter, only the fact that I reacted—as did countless others. The Salahis made it into The New York Times and The Washington Post, as well as countless other publications throughout the world.

The common refrain, one that we’ve all heard before, is to just ignore these people. It really does not matter which bimbo Ed Hardy-clad douche Jon Gosselin is snuggling up with, or whether Kate Gosselin is going to parlay her mediocre parenting skills and expert nagging into a talkshow gig. But as I’ve learned from the ongoing Gosselin drama, the shenanigans I profess to hate so much are hard to ignore.

I would liken the process to crack addiction; after the initial disgust, there is an unmistakable craving for more. After reading the first story about the Salahis, I put it out of my mind for several hours. Then at two in the morning, I found myself on Michaele’s Facebook page, which is filled with an odd mixture of curiosity and self-loathing. My favorite part is when she offers “national or International endorsement for your product or company”—perhaps a security system?

These people, the Gosselins or the Salahis, are human car wrecks. Once you see them, there is no hope of turning away. Thankfully, unlike in a real car accident, there is no concern about the victims’ well-being. There are no ambulances or paramedics working on unlucky bystanders. There are no innocents here, just people playing with fire and getting burned.

But as much as these people may have invited trouble and scorn into their lives, we are undeniably complicit in their megalomania. If these people are media whores—and they most certainly are—then we are the johns, degrading and abusing them for our own amusement. When Falcon Heene was supposedly trapped in a helium balloon, we were glued to MSNBC and Fox News, hoping for his safe return. When it turned out to be a hoax enacted by his fame-starved parents, everyone tut-tutted and shook their heads. But that didn’t stop us from watching the clip of little Falcon vomitting on The Today Show.

It’s incredibly easy to look down on Sarah Palin and the bully pulpit of her Facebook status updates. It also makes me feel really good about myself, by comparison—but very little good comes of it. My false sense of superiority doesn’t do anything to stop the huge payday she received from her best-selling fantasy book (I believe the title is The Maverick, The Kenyan, & The Death Panel). It also won’t erase the semi-nude pictures of Levi Johnston from my mind.

As the Dr. Frankenstein to these horrible abominations of nature, we do bear some responsibility for our creations’ actions. We cannot simply disown them as they rampage through the country, leaving behind a path of destruction and camera crews. At this point, I think that there is only one viable solution. It’s time for everyone to grab their pitchforks and torches, and solve this the old-fashioned way.