eating surf 'n' turf....hip and daring?

It's strange that watching Melrose place, eating surf 'n' turf in revolving restaurants, singing Frank Sinatra in karaoke bars and sipping girly drinks is considered hip or daring at all. Unless you could potentially vomit from the extremely slow moving revolving restaurant. It sounds pretty posh, expensive and mainstream to me. How can watching Melrose Place help you to escape culture? Isn't it a prime time television show of trendy 20-somethings and pool-side apartment drama?
Even though VH1 pop-up videos are a thing of the past, cultural wit, criticism, and camp pop up everywhere from Saturday Night Live to "Scary Movie 1-3" to "Another Teen Movie" to Alanis Morisette mocking Fergie- while the material they are mocking are still currently popular. These are all in the form of entertainment- but I believe that the supporters and the rebels enjoy their humor to a certain extent. They're mocking the current "cool" and it's really funny. Or at least I think it is.