Is Snooki Bigger Than Angelina These Days?

Jennifer Aniston, Jolie & Co. are still way, way more famous than any reality star—even Kate Gosselin

I see more news about trashy TV types like Snooki and Danielle Staub than I do about classy movie stars. Are reality stars the new A-listers?
—Kyli, via the Answer B!tch inbox

I would love for this to be true, just so I could run around screaming in a British accent that the world has gone mad, mad, I say! But, while Staub's icky sex tape may be all the rage at this particular second, that doesn't mean that anarchy is at hand.

How do I know? Because I dug deep, fools:

And, once I got past all that oil seeping in from the Gulf, I found some pretty interesting data.

First: Despite what you see on the cover of Life & Style this week, Jennifer Aniston, Angelina Jolie and company are still way, way more famous than any reality star. Even Kate Gosselin! Yes! Really!

"When it comes to recognizability, aspiration, appeal, none of the reality stars even comes close to touching an A-lister," says Matt Delzell of the research firm Davie Brown Entertainment.

The company maintains the Davie Brown index, which is basically a giant database measuring the fame level of every major star. (Snooki, by the way, is still too much of a nobody to make a blip on the David Brown radar.)

So then how on Earth does a trashy reality star end up on the cover of a magazine at all?

Well, A-listers are pretty and all, but, aside from poor Sandra Bullock, they're not offering us much in the off-screen entertainment department.

"People don't care that Demi Moore went on vacation with her family and did smart things," Delzell tells me. "We want to know that someone crashed into a pole naked with a 40 in their hands."

True that, son.

One final reason why Staub may seem more famous right now than, say, Brangelina: Visuals. If there's one thing you need to know about the entertainment news business, it's this, courtesy of Mark Pasetsky, managing editor at OK! Magazine and founder of Cover Awards: "Magazine covers are driven by photos."

And by that, we mean—usually—fresh photos.

There are always new photos of reality stars because they're always out there doing something crazy. But as Pasetsky put it, "when was the last time you've seen Brad and Angelina on the red carpet? We really haven't seen any new [images] of them in the past six months, which is part of the reason why you're seeing such a slowdown" in coverage of the pair.

However, once Angelina Jolie's new movie, Salt, debuts, you can expect Danielle Staub to fade for a bit. And don't be shocked if instead you see a spate of news stories about Brangelina—fed by brand-new publicity photos of the pair on a red carpet.