If it was fashionable to hate Marc Jacobs back in September—when critic Suzy Menkes sniped, "I would like to murder him with my bare hands and never see another Marc Jacobs show in my entire life," calling his collection "a freak show"—today, according to the New York Times, it is fashionable to hate the haters.

The Times shared a seat on Jacobs's preferred smoking bench outside The Mercer Hotel and discovered that the turmoil surrounding the rentboy-loving designer's latest collection and personal life is actually a meta-reflection on society. Even his cameo on The Hills is the sort of thing mirrored in his work. Says Marc, who is now working out two hours a day (the article mentions his "gym body" twice): "People don't really want reality.... They want surgically enhanced, scripted reality. The perversity of life today is so thrilling to me. It's like a circus out there. It's cartoon land."

We concur, and for that we'll be thanking Marc and his Spongebob Squarepants tattoo next time we're trying to decode the doings of Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt. We just thought it was a semi-scripted drama. Turns out, it's art.