A frequent viewer of The Hills once explained it to us as "Professional wrestling, but for women. You know it's fake, but you want to keep up with the storylines anyway." Perhaps that's why MTV continues to ignore the actual, tabloid-documented reality of what has happened to its successful stars in favor of an increasingly more laughable alternate universe where all four women are still struggling 9-to-5ers. Today brought two more examples of their tomfoolery:

Fashionista reports that Whitney Port's new job at DVF is a sham, and E! suggests that Heidi has returned to her fake work at Bolthouse. But why is MTV ignoring the show's real-life storylines when they're so much more dramatic than the listless plots it broadcasts? Let's take a look at their fantasy vs. reality, and speculate why the network has incentive to keep its blinders on:

LAUREN CONRAD
Show Storyline: According to the show, Lauren is a student at FIDM. She began the show with a long internship at Teen Vogue, then moved to a job at frightening PR firm People's Revolution.
Unshown, Real-Life Storyline: Lauren is a fashion designer who has shown at the last two LA Fashion Weeks. The show persists in insisting that she is still just a student at FIDM, despite the fact that FIDM students tell Defamer that she only sets foot on campus to film scenes for The Hills. Paparazzi, who follow Lauren relentlessly, never photograph her at the school she supposedly goes to. She has also inked a terrible deal to attempt sentences longer than three words as a young adult writer.

AUDRINA PATRIDGE
Show Storyline: Audrina worked at Quixote Studios as a blank-eyed receptionist before transferring to a job at Epic Records, where she annoys fellow coworker Chiara with boring stories about fake on/off boyfriend Justin Bobby.
Unshown, Real-Life Storyline: Audrina has leveraged brand-new breasts into an acting career, appearing in films like Into the Blue 2: The Reef and Sorority Row. If you call Epic to do business with Audrina, you will be informed, "I'm sorry, she isn't here," because she doesn't actually work there.

WHITNEY PORT
Show Storyline: Like Lauren, Whitney started her career at Teen Vogue before moving to People's Revolution. Now, she has moved to New York for spinoff show The City, where she is working for Diane Von Furstenberg.
Unshown, Real-Life Storyline: Except she, too, doesn't actually work there. Again, like Lauren, Whitney has started her own off-camera clothing line, Eve & A. Also, despite the MTV-engineered romance she will have in her upcoming show, Whitney has been dating starfucking film critic Ben Lyons, not Tara Reid-fucking rocker Jay Lyon.

HEIDI MONTAG
Show Storyline: Heidi managed to fail upward in a job with Bolthouse Productions, until she was fake-fired this season. Reports suggest, though, that she will return to her job in some capacity.
Unshown, Real-Life Storyline: Even Heidi's consummate fakery couldn't sell the idea that she ever truly worked at Bolthouse. The real Heidi is a beloved recording artist.

Perhaps MTV has found that the characters are more relatable if they hold quotidian jobs in glamorous industries, but is there any viewer who will buy Lauren's schooling when her fashion design career receives a regular berth in Us Weekly? It's time for MTV to throw off the shackles of their imagined reality and start showing us the actual nitty gritty. We don't care about Spencer and Heidi having roommate troubles. Give us Spencer tipping off paparazzi about his dinner at STK, or Heidi icing her nipples in between takes of "Higher"!