Yes, people really are, by your value system, that shallow. The answer to any "are _x_ really that _y_" when the point of reference is informed by the tastes of

Yes, people really are, by your value system, that shallow. The answer to any "are _x_ really that _y_" when the point of reference is informed by the tastes of _x_ is always "yes". You can rightly say that those stories don't interest you. They don't interest me, and as such I don't watch a lot of local news. But there are huge swaths of people that do watch this content. That is why it exists. It is like ads on the internet. They exist because they work on someone, even if they don't work on _you_.