MTV's 'The Hills' star Lauren Conrad answers students' questions, avoids cameras during SEC's Fall Frenzy
John Holmes
Issue date: 11/17/09 Section: Entertainment
11/17/09 - "Don't take any pictures. Not even on your phone. If we see you taking pictures, we will confiscate your phone or camera and delete all your pictures." These were the words with which attendees to Lauren Conrad's Monday night talk at the University of Rhode Island's Ryan Center , part of the Student Entertainment Committee's Fall Frenzy, were greeted.
As the audience filed into their seats, Ryan Center employees approached anyone they saw with a camera to remind them that it absolutely must be put away when Lauren came out, or it would be taken.
Even before Lauren took the stage, it was hard not to wonder why pictures of the star being taken would be such an issue. Normally a company has enough faith in its product that word-of-mouth and customer testimonials are considered a boon, but Conrad's handlers don't seem to share this idea.
Perhaps the reason is that when Conrad is not glammed up to appear for television, it becomes fairly obvious that there is very little to say about the reality show celebrity.
The program began abruptly when a representative from the URI Student Entertainment Committee began to interview her without Conrad even deigning to introduce herself to the fans who had come out and paid $12 to hear what she had to say. Now as horrific as it is that anyone out there, let alone a college student ostensibly with goals and ambitions, paid money to hear a glorified Paris Hilton talk about what it's like to be famous for no reason, these fans should have the right to be treated as something more than a fly on the wall.
As bored as the crowd seemed during this segment of the program, their boredom could not even come close to that obviously felt by Conrad herself. There was no energy, no personality, no life. It was as if, in a moment of existential anguish at the emptiness of her life, she was having second thoughts about pursuing such vapid goals. Hell, as I sat there, trying in vain to feel a bit of interest as she talked about what it's like to live in Los Angeles ("I love it, it's a really cool place to be and do the things I do") or what her favorite things to wear are ("during the day, skinny jeans, and at night, mini cocktail dresses"), I wondered what more productive things I could be doing with my time, such as curing cancer, volunteering my time to help orphans, or clipping my toenails.
As the audience filed into their seats, Ryan Center employees approached anyone they saw with a camera to remind them that it absolutely must be put away when Lauren came out, or it would be taken.
Even before Lauren took the stage, it was hard not to wonder why pictures of the star being taken would be such an issue. Normally a company has enough faith in its product that word-of-mouth and customer testimonials are considered a boon, but Conrad's handlers don't seem to share this idea.
Perhaps the reason is that when Conrad is not glammed up to appear for television, it becomes fairly obvious that there is very little to say about the reality show celebrity.
The program began abruptly when a representative from the URI Student Entertainment Committee began to interview her without Conrad even deigning to introduce herself to the fans who had come out and paid $12 to hear what she had to say. Now as horrific as it is that anyone out there, let alone a college student ostensibly with goals and ambitions, paid money to hear a glorified Paris Hilton talk about what it's like to be famous for no reason, these fans should have the right to be treated as something more than a fly on the wall.
As bored as the crowd seemed during this segment of the program, their boredom could not even come close to that obviously felt by Conrad herself. There was no energy, no personality, no life. It was as if, in a moment of existential anguish at the emptiness of her life, she was having second thoughts about pursuing such vapid goals. Hell, as I sat there, trying in vain to feel a bit of interest as she talked about what it's like to live in Los Angeles ("I love it, it's a really cool place to be and do the things I do") or what her favorite things to wear are ("during the day, skinny jeans, and at night, mini cocktail dresses"), I wondered what more productive things I could be doing with my time, such as curing cancer, volunteering my time to help orphans, or clipping my toenails.
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