So Paris Hilton's going to jail.

Well, she always was a trendsetter. Given that that trashy crowd she runs around with (Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Ritchie and assorted wanna-bes with MySpace feuds I can't be bothered to remember right now) is anyway in the news half the time for getting wasted in several ways, I bet Paris is about to get some company real soon.

Nicole Ritchie is already under the scanner and Lindsay Lohan is apparently headed to Vegas for her 21st birthday (such a shy, retiring little flower that one, can't think of anyone else who really deserves to live it up a little).

What's really eerie about this whole business is how it's barely news. I mean, Alec Baldwin yelled at his kid and the world exploded. Paris Hilton got sent to jail and for all the reaction you can find, everybody was more or less expecting it. It's like she's some kind of mass experiment - back when she began, everybody was waiting to see how far she could climb without actually, you know, doing anything; and now everybody is waiting to see how far she can fall without half trying.

Back in the 1980s, Madonna reportedly asked Rosanna Arquette, "Wouldn't you give anything to be me for just a minute?" I look at Paris and I bet that's where she thought she was headed when she set out to become famous. And for one brief moment in time, I suppose she succeeded.

The Simple Life was a big hit, primarily because it lived down to everybody's expectations and portrayed her and on-again/off-again best pal Ritchie in the worst light possible. She had a brainless catchphrase that she wanted to get copyrighted ("It's hot!") and she was setting all kinds of disgusting fashion trends like carting around tiny little dogs in expensive handbags. Most of what made her famous was pretty incredible - incredibly stupid - but there was very obviously a niche out there that she could fill. Little girls really did want to grow up to be Paris Hilton.

I look at those years as the lost years. Had it been me I would have had such fun! Fuck getting drunk and screwing shipping heirs - I would have tried to see just how far people would go to copy me. What if I got myself a pet monkey? Would other people do it? A tiny little bushbaby, perhaps. PETA would have gone up in flames! The Olsens have proved that trying to be extra fug doesn't win you converts but that's because they took it too far. Look at those hideous little Ugg boots - they were a rash on the bum of humanity for a while and they accomplished that by concentrating on one body part. Yes, I would have had so much fun.

However, One Night in Paris changed all that. Before, people thought she just dressed like a skank; now she actually was one. It wasn't just the sex tape, it was all the tawdry little details that kept trickling out after that. Paris somehow went on and continued on her way. She was a living testament to the maxim that all publicity is good publicity. But the auctioned contents of her locker revealed a young woman dealing with low self-esteem, medical problems, personal tragedies carefully hidden from public view (no mean feat given the self-inflicted media glare around her), and cheap sex.