You know that slew of reality programming that comes from the incredibly specific and narrow source of other reality programming? I’m talking about television in the vein “Flavor of Love,” “I Love New York” and “Real Chance of Love.” There are tons of reality shows like this that regurgitate their loudest, most obnoxious competitors whom you love to hate and hate to love and put them in their own series, rinse and repeat. And it’s pretty widely agreed upon that these shows are crap.

With the advent of reality TV, we were introduced to the idea that anyone could be a star. What has really come to pass, though, is that anyone can be a star if that person is loud, aggressive, willing to fall instantly and madly in love with an ex-rapper, can’t handle rejection and is willing to display all of that crazy on national television. And if everyone’s expectations of crazy are exceeded, then these people can make their stardom last longer than a season when they get a whole new show just to highlight the madness.

And this brings us to the realization to which we all came after the premiere of “I Love New York”: Just because anyone can have a TV show doesn’t mean everyone should.

Still, people watch these shows. This programming must be in high demand considering the way these melodramatic pseudo-divas are handed TV shows left and right. And despite the sermons from my higher-brow friends stating otherwise, I don’t think there’s much wrong with watching these shows.

Following the trajectory of this new brand of celebrity is really quite fascinating. It doesn’t even require watching the show every week. All you need to do is see one episode partway through the season and keep up with the episode promos and you’ll know that Bret Michaels is picking between Jes and Heather.

The phenomenon of former reality contestants getting their own show on which more contestants can compete not only for some grandiose prize, but also the chance to also get their own show, is fairly recent in the history of TV. We can see the progression of television before our eyes in a shorter time span than ever before. The path to fame of these types of reality show stars displays a little slice of modern American culture, albeit a rather tacky slice.

These shows have their own special genealogy — a family tree linking Megan Hauserman to her dysfunctional family members “Beauty and the Geek,” “Rock of Love,” “Rock of Love: Charm School” and the short-lived “Megan Wants a Millionaire.”

Just to demonstrate how fascinating this style of TV is, I’ll illustrate the prime example, courtesy of only the highest quality of VH1 programming. You might want to make a flowchart to follow this one.

If you know who Flava Flav is, then you probably know he brought about the fame of Tiffany Pollard, better known as “New York.” You might not have known that the rapper fell back into the spotlight with an appearance on “The Surreal Life” where he met and dated Brigitte Nielsen. They received their own show “Strange Love,” where she dumped him at the end of the season. So he got his own show “Flavor of Love.” And that’s just where the mess begins.

The loud and boisterous Tiffany “New York” Pollard was the first runner-up on the first season of “Flavor of Love.” Though she didn’t take her rejection well, she also mended her broken heart with a mess of her own shows including multiple seasons of “I Love New York,” “New York Goes to Hollywood” and “New York Goes to Work.”

“I Love New York” gave birth to the fame-monster Kamal Givens.