Hey, Dave! I think that in addition to taking the essay with a little grain of salt, one should consider the "value" of which it speaks refers to Paris as a generator of attention -- positive or negative -- and not so much about her contributions to society. It's about the way her "incoming links" are generated by her "outgoing links" rather than her value as a role model (which, is nil, AFAIK). The fact that your feelings about her are strongly negative is a testament to her attention-getting ability, and from an "attention is currency" point of view, that's good. (See this diagram from the Creating Passionate Users blog.) This still doesn't explain why my former roomate P. thinks she's hot, nor why we had to suffer watching The Simple Life every week.