Admittedly, as a rule, I don’t like reality television. That being said, I’m pretty sure that everyone from the staunchest reality hater to the most devoted Amazing Race fan will find something to love in The Vote-Off, a new video from Funny or Die. Aside from the quick “Elimination Island” scene in Run Ronnie Run, this might be the funniest reality show parody ever.

The producers of Fox’s MasterChef have been forced to release an apology after an eagle-eyed Redditor caught them flagrantly faking footage. Of course, as most reality TV shows have as much in common with reality as an animated movie about a world of sentient cars, this is as necessary as forcing a professional wrestling producer to apologize for faked body slams. Still, since many Americans remain as naive to the genre’s tricks as my third grade best friend was to the WWE’s, stories like this remain hilarious and instructive.

The other day, while writing a post discussing a TV show that seeks to find a middle ground between pornography and reality television, I loudly (perhaps too loudly) announced to our obliging (perhaps too obliging) office that I would rather watch 20 minutes of the worst porn than one episode of any reality series. Instantly, people started sending me links and videos and I was forced to retract my statement after watching just seconds of one. Instead of disregarding it completely though, I downgraded it to this: I respect any porn star more than any reality TV star. I then thought it would be interesting to examine why.

At this point, you probably know that Bristol Palin has moved to the finals on Dancing with the Stars. You also might know that some don’t believe she deserves it and aren’t happy about it. What you probably don’t know, is that one of those people got so angry he shot his TV with a shotgun and then had a 15 hour standoff with the police. If Bristol Palin doing well on dancing show can make the guy this angry, lets hope he never tries to watch the news.

Despite landing at the bottom of the leader board four times this season, Alaska’s abstinence-loving former First Daughter (and Mark Ballas, her dance partner) has managed to waltz her way into the finale of Dancing With the Stars. Tonight, it was revealed that Bristol and Mark beat out third-place finishers Brandy and Maksim Chmerkovskiy— even though one of the singer’s dances was awarded a perfect score on Monday. Conspiracy?

Yes, you read that headline right: The network behind masterpieces like The Anna Nicole Show and Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami is getting ready to launch a new, awful reality juggernaut about soon-to-be brides competing for a total plastic surgery makeover.

Ah, the Salahis, they’re just universally beloved, aren’t they? Michaele Salahi was on The View with the cast of whatever stupid show she’s in (yeah, I’m just gonna put the “Columnist” tag on now, ok) and was not well received. After a brief on camera altercation with Whoopi Goldberg, Salahi and her equally ridiculous husband got in a fight with The View host and are now accusing her of attacking Michaele. I’m going to side with Whoopi. Not because I have any facts. Just because I like to side with people who have actually managed to contribute something to humanity during their time on earth.

Hooray for the “Columnist” tag!

Welcome to the first installment of our summer series in which we head back into the Mediaite Vault (*cough* the Internet *cough*) to find some choice moments showing media personalities back when their journalism hit a little less hard. Consider it meeting the press before they were the press. First up, we watch Anderson Cooper channel his inner Derek Flint.

Does this mark the unofficial beginning of the long, hot, likely nutty summer ahead? Tom Mullins, the Republican nominee for a New Mexico congressional seat, told a radio show over the weekend that one way the U.S. could secure the Mexican border would be to place land mines along it.

It looks like Sarah Palin’s reality television show about Alaska is one step closer to becoming, well, a reality. The reality show in question, is not, as was first rumored, a show about the Palin family. Instead, as has been mentioned before, it will be a show about Alaska hosted by Palin. And it won’t come cheap.

Looking back over the last few days at the events surrounding Tareq and Michaele Salahi — the Virginian couple who crashed last week’s White House state dinner — it’s hard not to wonder whether we haven’t just witnessed the invention of some brand new type of reality game show: extreme reality. Unlike Balloon Boy all signs point to the Salahis wanting to be caught. Now they get to tell their story to the Secret Service.