Did you happen to watch any of VH1’s “I Love New York?” How about “New York goes to Hollywood?” “Rock of Love?” “Daisy of Love?” “I Love Money?” If the answer to any of the above was “yes,” then I implore you to hear me out.

Shows like these are single handedly destroying our society. It is the fault of VH1’s aforementioned “Love” series that we now live in a world where MTV renounces the music in its bug in order to bring us programming the likes of “The Jersey Shore” on a consistent basis.

These kinds of shows are what I lovingly refer to as crap TV. Crap TV is the television equivalent of cigarettes. It couldn’t be more obvious how harmful this product is, but dammit if everyone just can’t stop doing it for some reason.

Admittedly, there is a difference between crap TV and reality TV. I choose to count shows like “American Idol” as a member of the genre of reality TV because there is an undeniable amount of talent that takes place on those shows.

Therein lies the distinction between reality and crap. There is no talent to be found in crap TV. Instead, it simply parades around hordes of Paris Hilton wannabes that have somehow clambered into the public’s eye. Everyone there wants to be famous and now-a-days just being famous is enough to be famous. We even have an entire channel (VH1) that has been devoted to making morally questionable people into celebrities.

Admittedly VH1 started out with an understandable idea: Take mildly famous people in-need of a reintroduction to the spotlight and stick them on television doing stuff.

However, over time the nonfamous people that were brought in to make the mildly famous person look more famous by comparison got their own shows where they -- I’m not entirely sure what they do but I’m pretty sure that some stuff happens, I think.

But it’s important for me to reiterate the NONfamous people got their own shows. It was right then the mildly creative minds at VH1 took their first hit of the metaphoric crack that is crap television.

They did what can best be described as reverse freebasing. Instead of purifying the product, they muddied it. They purposely soiled the programming, but somehow it worked. And now the creators of crap TV are fixated and they constantly need stronger and worse ideas to satiate their addictions, i.e. shows like “Charm School” and “Tool Academy.”

While it is tempting to blame VH1’s current programming situation on the insatiable junkies that peddle their crap TV like it actually has content, the real blame lies on us. We are the ones who have been willingly submitting ourselves to this mindless drivel. Today it’s crap TV, tomorrow it’s Soma.

We cannot continue to allow such television to be put on the air for anyone to see. The FCC won’t allow swearing or nudity, but an hour long “Daisy of Love” special to find out if Daisy is going to choose 12 Pack, Flex or London is in the clear?!

No.

Sure it’s all fun and games when you’re tuning in once a week to see where the Bachelorette is taking her thirty suitors on a romantic, intimate date, but shows like “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” are gateway shows. That is, they lead to heavier, more toxic programming (“Flavor of Love”).

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone over to a friend’s house to find them trembling in a cold sweat as they pour over a stolen copy of TV guide in an attempt to scrap together the remaining vestiges of their last crap fix. It really is a sickness that can be avoided.

The VH1 show “For the Love of Ray J 2” reported pulling in over two million people for an episode last year. Such a statistic is insanely demoralizing. This is a show about a guy whose main claim to fame is a sex tape. On top of that, they gave him not one but two seasons! God knows that if you don’t find a disease-free contestant the first go around, then it’s certainly time to take another lap through the reality contestant talent pool right?

Wrong.

What these shows are doing is inciting a primal urge within us. This happens to be the very same primal urge that has allowed brands like Ed Hardy and bands like Nickelback to actually make money. If Christian Audigier, Chad Kroeger and VH1 producers had it their way, we’d all be living in caves, wearing shiny t-shirts and beating each other with clubs while obsessing over whether Real is going to choose “Doll” or “Sassy” on “Real Chance of Love.”

I won’t say it’s obvious by any means and to be honest I do have some optimistic doubts, but I feel that this might be the beginning of our societies’ descent back into the dark ages. Crap TV is our bubonic plague and all that it’s doing right now is spreading.

But we have the ability to curb the foreboding societal deterioration by CHANGING THE CHANNEL.

Please exercise this right when faced with crap TV.