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Finally! Someone has the guts to stand up for the world's downtrodden hotel heiresses, whose only desire is that they be left to live their lives in peace, free from the flashbulb-popping scavengers of the celebrity media. That's what has emerged from the recent photos published just about everywhere—including here—of Paris Hilton, accompanied by what turns out was not her guru, but an actor hired to fool us into thinking as much by Ashton Kutcher's new prank series, Pop Fiction:

Pop Fiction, an eight-episode series, is a prank show targeting paparazzi and gullible media outlets. It's made with the eager help of stars, who were the laughing stocks of Kutcher's former MTV show.

This time the shoe's on the other foot, and the series has been kept so tightly under wraps that E!'s own website fell victim to the Hilton hoax and other planted stories that producers won't yet divulge.

"You're speaking their language. We live in a culture that's driven by media and obsessed with celebrity, to the point where they don't have private lives anymore," [Kutcher's producing partner Jason] Goldberg says.

"Two people going out to eat turns into, 'They're engaged.' It's a feeding frenzy. It's dangerous and it's irresponsible in some cases."

So elaborate and convincing are these paparazzi punji sticks, that even more legitimate media outlets have found themselves duped. What Harper's Bazaar, for example, thought was an exclusive interview with the Kutcher-Moores was, in fact, yet another planted Pop Fiction prank. All that spiritual horseshit about how Kabbalah has helped Ashton and Demi through the rough patches was actually just a brilliant satire of what they imagined a vapid Hollywood couple would say in a fawning fashion magazine profile. Face it, Harper's: You've been pap'd!