This is what our media-besotted culture has come to:

The episode that transfixed the nation last week — a spaceshiplike balloon floating through the Colorado skies with a 6-year-old boy named Falcon believed to be inside — was declared a hoax by the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office on Sunday.

“It has been determined that this is a hoax, that it was a publicity stunt,” the Larimer County sheriff, Jim Alderden, said at a news conference in Fort Collins, Colo., one day after re-interviewing members of the now-famous Heene family about the case. “We have evidence to indicate it was a publicity stunt done with the hope of marketing themselves to a reality television show sometime in the future.”

And then further down, you read this:

Mr. Heene and his wife have been enmeshed for years in the culture of reality television and self-promotional Web postings. The family appeared twice on the ABC show “Wife Swap,” including as recently as last March. Mr. Heene wanted his own show about his family, and he worked with at least one production company on a proposal. On Friday the cable channel TLC said it had turned down the proposal months ago. He has posted YouTube videos claiming to show proof of life on Mars and asking whether Hillary Rodham Clinton was a “reptilian.”

Last month Mr. Heene signed up for an account on RealityWanted.com, a Web site that connects reality television casting agents and aspiring contestants, according to Mark Yawitz, a co-founder of the site. Mr. Heene had made his profile private, making it impossible to view whether he had submitted his information to agents.

Neighbors also said Mr. Heene was a storm chaser who followed the path of tornadoes and other weather events and was interviewed about his escapades on local television. He is also known around his neighborhood as something of a self-proclaimed scientist and inventor, who worked on the helium balloon — the family called it a “flying saucer” — for months.

Several words spring to mind. “Pathetic.” “Sad.” “Warped.”

We have become a country in which perception has transcended reality, where the two-dimensional gloss of the camera lens defines our breadth and depth.  You are what you are seen to be doing, especially on television.  And the surest way to fame and fortune is to produce your own reality (preferably in weekly, cliffhanger installments). 

Good grief.