That New York Reality TV School we mentioned earlier is getting more and more attention, becoming something of a television-esque circus unto itself. A brave writer for AdAge entered the fray recently, and reports back that, just like reality shows themselves, events are pre-arranged and camera crews are everywhere. He met a woman named Cody-Ann Palmer, who expressed an interest in appearing on a show like The Real World or sadness-fest Big Brother. She seemed like the ideal reality star-assured, ambitious, dumb-until her time came to do a practice pitch of herself:

Moments later, Ms. Palmer, who had been a mostly passive presence throughout the class, volunteers to give a mock audition for a show called "Who Do You Look Like?" She enters the circle of students and begins to stammer. "OK, people always tell me I look like, umm, that girl from that one movie ..." She snaps her fingers and puts her hands on her head to jog her memory. Phil shouts back, "Come on! Why did you volunteer if you can't even think of the name? Come prepared!" "Stop yelling at me!" Ms. Palmer retorts, getting visibly emotional. "I didn't come here to get humiliated!" She then shields her face with her hand, in true reality diva fashion, to block the camera crews from Ad Age, Fuji Television in Japan, BBC International Radio and the U.K.'s "Good Morning Television" that have been documenting the class in its entirety.

Oohh, real-life drama playing out at real-life drama school, and on camera! Except, sigh, it was all a fake. Cody was nothing but a mole, planted by the instructor to demonstrate what a reality show freak-out might look like. (Because, I guess, he figured we'd never seen one of those before.) So, heh, that's pretty meta and strange that there was a filmed faux scene at the filmed faux scene academy. I don't know whether to weep or applaud at that. Another fellow who spoke with the reporter was just a regular old guy who works in the tech world who just signed up to learn some good, not-so-old-fashioned public speaking skills: "This is the form of PR for the 21st century CEO — to be media savvy." That's sort of depressing, though not really any more depressing than PR has always been. By far the most promising graduate from that day's class was a 19-year-old bisexual named Juliette who was immediately singled out by the esteemed faculty as having some sort of special reality show quality. Maybe it's that she introduces herself "I'm Juliette, I'm 19... and I'm bisexual." A perfect fit for the fake-bisexual Hindenburg A Shot at Love With Tila Tequlia, the Dean of Falling Out of the Hot Tub surmised. About fifty people have gone through the program already, and with all the continued coverage, I'm sure more people will tune in sign up for the potentially life changing classes. The old har-har used to be that reality show contestants graduated into bitter obscurity, but that seems less and less true. That Italian guy from Tila Tequila got a show for Christ sake, and the VH1 legion of heroes keeps popping up on some permutation of the same tired theme. So maybe it is worth the few hours and the couple hundred bucks. It could make you a brief, tarnished star and then provide a wealth of weird stories for the rest of your life. See you there tomorrow.