No one wants them. Well, the Hey! It's That Guy! does. But he's the only one. Regardless: they're getting them anyway.

Famous Person of the Year

This year, it's been hard to determine who's had the greatest achievement in fame. Angelina Jolie used hers to (allegedly) sink a huge movie and break up a marriage. Michael Jackson rediscovered a great way to get himself daily press. And Lindsay Lohan...but then, calling Lindsay Lohan "Famous Person of the Year" is like calling a totalled Toyota that's run head-on into the side of a building "Car of the Year."

So for guidance, we had to consider past Famous Persons of the Year Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck. For Jennifer Lopez sought fame with her every action, thought, and breath, and lo, when she achieved it and took a mate to her bosom, he drank of her fame, and he saw that it was good, and when the two of them had parted and he found yet another mate, he kissed her, and all his fame flowed into her lips, and then all the people from miles around found that they couldn't quit staring at her stomach to guess if she might be carrying his little fame-baby.

So if Jennifer Garner wishes she wasn't Famous Person of the Year, she will have to accept that she has no one to blame but herself. Her monstrous fame now is a by-product of Jennifer Lopez's fame, communicated to Garner through their shared boyfriend, Ben Affleck. "Bennifer" -- the first one -- changed everything; Lopez and Affleck pursued fame so vigorously that, having caught it, they can't get rid of it. Even though Affleck and Garner now are trying to keep a low profile, neither of them having yet acknowledged that they even are a couple, it's too late; Lopez's fame has a really long half-life, and it's irradiated Garner.

Which is not to say that Garner has no responsibility for the position she's in now. She knew what Affleck was when they started keeping company: damaged goods! A bewigged phony! Box-office poison so strong that he could cause movies to flop that he wasn't even in (that would be Elektra; it's okay if you've already forgotten it). Garner could have stayed away, but she didn't. She's made her bed, and now she has to lie in it, along with all of Affleck's shed body hair. (We hear.)

And the queen of the fame hive, Jennifer Lopez, hasn't seen her own fame diminish in the least. It's like all her fame minions are still paying her fame dividends, so that publicity for them is publicity for her. It's a fame pyramid scheme. She's the Amway of fame.

Garner's inherited fame now is such that she's the carrier. Whichever celebrity she dates next will be infected with it just as she has been, and then when they part, he'll pass it on, and so on, and so on. This fame can't be killed: it can only be communicated.

Most Undeservedly Famous Person of the Year

Time was, the single greatest contributor to the community of undeservedly famous people was reality television. But since the inauguration of the Rascos, another, more nefarious source of undeserved fame growth has emerged: Us Weekly. Bonnie Fuller's down-market revamp of the once respectable magazine has brought tabloid reporting to a new low: no one can take a tiny seed of a story and draaaaaaw it out over multiple issues like Us Weekly can -- although Star and In Touch do try. Okay, the story of Jennifer Aniston appearing in public without her wedding ring did turn out to be something, but the tales of Mary-Kate Olsen's eating disorder, Tara Reid's boob pop-out, and Colin Farrell's...Colin Farrell-ing haven't amounted to much and don't quite merit all the space given over to giant photos of them accompanied by 300-word feature articles fully sourced by anonymous "friends."

One story Us Weekly has barely had to goose to keep running it, though, is the rapid unraveling of former pop singer Britney Spears. Once a legitimate celebrity (and past Rasco recipient in the categories of Newgoer of the Year -- well, we wished -- and Famous Person of the Year), Spears is now a full-on personality, landing in the gossip rags only when she embarrasses herself (and we mean "only" in the sense of "never for any other reason," not in the sense that her self-embarrassment is rare). No one knows when Spears was last in the recording studio, but we know she likes Cheetos and Red Bull; goes barefoot in public washrooms; threw a Subway cup of soda at a paparazzo; owns a stupid purse dog; and married a complete moron. And we sure as hell know his name: Kevin Federline.

Now, normaly we'd be using this space to rail against the celebrity-industrial complex for elevating to exalted positions people who don't deserve it, and how Federline is a perfect example, but...you know, duh. Dude is a backup dancer -- penniless, presumably -- whose most impressive premarital credit was a Target ad you could barely see his face in: OBVIOUSLY he doesn't deserve to be the single-name celebrity he kind of is. But the same could be said, these days, of his bride: she hasn't so much as said an unfortunately miked swear word in months (since to do so would require her to leave the house for a professional engagement of some kind), but every time she teps outside in cutoffs and a messy topknot, you better believe we know about it. So when the time came for Spears and her swain to wed, in a ceremony so classy that "Pimp"-embroidered tracksuits were ordered and the bride wore hot pants to the reception, of COURSE we knew everything about it that it was possible to know without actually being there. Their wanting us to know made us want to know.

And so we also know that Federline is, basically, the poor man's Justin Timberlake: he wears his pants too big, he's white with a fake blaccent, he likes to dance, and he is -- at the moment -- interested in Spears's boobies, as Timberlake was, for a while. (Now he's off boobies entirely -- or so one would surmise from the fact that he's dating Cameron Diaz.) But being the poor man's JT also means you have to have even less class than JT -- viz Federline's abandonment of girlfriend and fellow marginal entertainment-industry personage Shar Jackson for Spears when Jackson was pregnant with his baby -- and not his first, either.

Federline is gormless cloon by any measure of the term. And yet, you saw him on the cover of Details earlier this month. Why? Because he married a vapid bimbo who used to lip-synch to soulless pop songs, once. But when all is said and done, Federline's claim to the fame he has accrued will be to have been Mr. Britney Spears for about eighteen months (you want the under on that?) longer than you have. And then she'll start dating a Wilson and he'll win I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, and the life cycle of undeserved fame will begin anew with whatever poor bastard marries Michelle Trachtenberg. Until that guy comes along, though, K.Fed is the cover boy of Undeserved Fame Weekly.

Newgoer of the Year

By the time you read this, she may already be gone. And that would make us a little bit sad, because this year she treated us to the best little hoedown jiggety-jig we've seen in quite a long while.

And don't think it's lost on us that we gave this same award to her sister, some years ago, and that girl's proved to be as persistent, fame-wise, as a Plantar's wart.

Still: Ashlee Simpson, you are the Newgoer of the Year.

Sure, we thought about the cast of Desperate Housewives, whom we actually like, but who are stuck on a show that seems destined, as it steams forward fueled by the high-octane zeitgeist, to go zooming right off the top of Twin Peaks and crash smoking in the valley below.

We thought about Hilary Duff, who's been lapped by Lindsay Lohan, her ostensible rival, and who's making both movies and records that seem primarily designed for people to grow out of, then become vaguely embarrassed about.

We thought about Tara Reid, but come on. Leave poor Tara Reid alone.

No, it's you, Ashlee Simpson, who we suspect will finally be swallowed up this year in a huge, acrid ball of your own acid reflux and bile. (Okay, some of that bile is ours. Sorry -- it just dribbled out.)

Look -- you seem nice enough, but here's the problem: You're a fake. Your show's a fake. Your image is a fake. Your hair colour's fake. Your excuses are fake. Your re-excuses are fake. You wear a t-shirt that says "Punk" because you think that makes you punk, and you're close -- it doesn't make you punk, but it does make you a punk.

You are a clumsy concoction. Go, live a life of joy and privacy. Trust us. One day you'll wake up and realize you're essentially an ATM for your dad and it won't make you happy. You'll learn to hate him. Then you'll crash. Then you'll try to get another reality show, but they'll only give you one that involves living in the same house with Corey Feldman and Verne Troyer.

We do thank you for one other thing, though, aside from the jig. You prompted the funniest moment on SNL all year, when Horatio Sanz, as Elton John, sang, "Ashlee Simpson is a phoney! Acid reflux is baloney!" Which made us laugh, hard, even as we were thinking, You know, that's an insult to baloney.

Sorry, but somebody had to tell you. Everyone else is too busy booing.

The William H. Macy Memorial HITG! Graduation

This is a very special award for those of us at Fametracker HQ. Last year, our staff of hundreds fought openly, brother against sister, mother against father, as people were divided almost equally between who deserved to graduate: Paul Giamatti, or the eventual choice, the lovely Patricia Clarkson.

So what did Giamatti do in response? He said, "Screw you, Fametracker! I'll toss that tassel if it's the last thing I do!"

Then he proceeded to toss that tassel. Hard.

Sure, you could make a case for Jake Weber, the very fine actor who starred in the Dawn of the Dead remake and is now humming along on the surprise hit Medium. But, really, you've gotta go with Giamatti. This was his year. Onscreen, he kicked ass in Sideways, and offscreen, he always looks cool and scowly like he can't stand those Hollywood phonys. We're with you, man. We're with you.

We're always sad to see a H!ITG! of Paul Giamatti's caliber move into leading-man, name recognition, Oscar-nomination status. (And, yes, we know he didn't get one this year and, yes, we're still bitter.) It's like saying good-bye to an old friend: an old, familiar friend whose name you could never quite remember.

We'll be seeing you...That Guy.

Of course, we remember Giamatti's name and we wish him well. He rocks in role after role,. If there was any justice in Tinseltown, Demi Moore would never work again. But that's besides the point.

To thee, Paul Giamatti -- a toast. And no, it's not Merlot.

Most Likely to Become a Personality Before the Rascos are Awarded Again

This one pains us. It really does. It pains us as much as it might if the winner actually sat on us, or pinned us down with his knees and forced us to watch Canadian Bacon.

Because, hey, we teared up in Fahrenheit 9/11 too. We rooted for Roger & Me. We never actually read any of his rant-heavy books, but we hear from some people that they're good.

But Michael Moore, you are in danger of becoming a professional personality.

Not because it's hard to imagine you ever making another affecting movie, if only because...well, who in their right mind would answer your calls? And not because you're suddenly everywhere, pulling spurious stunts like yanking your documentary from contention in the Best Documentary category because for you, it's Best Picture or Bust. (Bust, as it turned out.) Not because of the weird, faux-populist, trucker-hat, shambling-man act, which always kind of bugged us until one day you emerged with a goatee and new haircut and slick David Copperfield suit, all of which made us long for the trucker hat and the shambling man act again.

(Perhaps you can sponsor a festival in the desert where people come to sing and dance and worship you. Call it Shambling Man.)

No, it's because you've become a twinned bookend, along with Ann Coulter, on the overburdened bookshelf of hyperbolic politic ranting that's Exhibit A in what's wrong with politics in America. Because, as with Ann Coulter, we can't help but think that some of it, part of it, is just schtick. (Unlike Coulter, though, we don't think you're crazy. Or evil. Or frighteningly, frighteningly thin. No, you're pretty much the opposite of that.)

And because -- most and worst of all -- we've started having the unshakeable feeling that Michael Moore movies would be that much better if they just had a little less Michael Moore in them.

You're fighting the good fight. We appreciate it, we do. It's just that you do it with a bullhorn in one hand and a vanity mirror in the other. And if someone starts dogging you to get an interview, don't blow him off! Figure it out! The irony is pretty obvious!

You've done good work. But it's getting a little too easy to picture you and Mel Gibson doing a "Less filling! Tastes great!" Miller Lite commercial not to far down the road. So step back and meditate on these four words: Fly. On. The. Wall.

They might come in handy one day.

Lifetime Achievement Award

Enough. Seriously -- SERIOUSLY -- this must end. Whatever it takes to make Paris Hilton go away forever, we'll do it.

This isn't Hilton's first visit to the Rasco podium: we've previously awarded her the un-honours of Most Undeservedly Famous Person of the Year (shared with her sister Nicky, who by comparison seems now to be living like a nun. Who's taken a vow of silence. And is cloistered on the moon) and Famous Person of the Year. We thought she'd go away soon, and then we'd have a record to show to future generatons that would not otherwise believe that, in the early twenty-first century, North America could idolize a stupid, spoiled whore with nothing to recommend her except the accident of birth that happened to bestow upon her fabulous wealth instead of lead poisoning or rickets.

At least, we hope that future generations, looking back on the Hilton years -- the Age of Unenlightenment -- will be doing so from a position of such superiority that they will regard her fame as a legend or a myth, or maybe a fable: a cautionary tale that couldn't possibly be the literal truth. But we've given up hope that we'll be able to evolve that much in our own lifetime. Hilton is just going to be with us, always, inescapably, incurably. She's the herpes of fame: there's no eradicating her completely, and all we can do is manage the outbreaks.

Other celebrities, you see, achieved their fame through their artistic products, so that once the market has dried up for their work, they fade from public life. Hilton wisely skipped right over the part where you get famous for doing things; fame is her work. As soon as interest in her flags in the slightest, she knows how to right her ship: release another sex tape; show up somewhere else covered in mysterious bruises (or "bruises," because...come on); leak the contents of another PDA. But these tactics only work if we let them: if we stop paying attention, maybe it will really kill her, or at least dissolve her into a puddle of gin and laxatives. Page Six has already done its part to kick off the revolution by announcing that it will no longer cover her; our contribution to the struggle is to induct her into the Fame Hal of Fame, and then never speak of her again.

- MFF & WC