Without Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan’s daily antics, it’s fallen on Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt to fill the gossip blogs and tabloid covers. And they’ve more than made themselves available. “We’re always the juicier story,” Spencer tells the LAT. “And when Heidi and Spencer are gossip machines, it’s like, ‘What did Heidi and Spencer do?’”

This is the stock of celebrity we’ve allowed ourselves to settle for, and they’re cleaning up; $50,000 each for hosting a party here, $15,000 for posing for “paparazzi” photos there.

They’ve hired a publicist (veteran Cindy Guagenti at BWR), but they do their own press — something Us Weekly’s Janice Min knows all too well. Originally unimpressed by these loathsome duo, she quickly saw her web traffic and comments count shoot up whenever they covered them. Which might explain those rumors about the $1 million deal between the magazine and the pair of self-promoters.