Like most college students, I'm both a pop culture junkie and critic.

I spend hours absorbing whatever MTV and VH1 have to offer, all the while making my sarcastic little jabs at Jessica Simpson and Michael Jackson, pretending I'm some sort of pop culture mastermind.

But I'm not even close.

Chuck Klosterman, a SPIN magazine senior writer, is light years ahead of the game.

His latest novel, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, effortlessly schools both me and any other contenders in the fine art of pop culture deconstruction.

Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs is an ingenious series of essays that dissects everything from breakfast cereal to serial killers.

And Klosterman does it all without breaking a sweat.

The guy can even make footnotes interesting.

In chapter nine of Cocoa Puffs, Klosterman examines the world of Internet porn.

He humbly admits, "I have no practical knowledge of the 'information superhighway.' "

He then writes in a footnote at the bottom of the page, "Are people (besides Al Gore) still using this term? Probably not."

Seriously, the footnotes in this novel alone could provide hours upon hours of topical entertainment.

Not that I'm suggesting this as an alternative.

Because besides being hilarious, the content in Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs actually provides an eye-opening analysis of our generation's cult obsessions

Take Saved by the Bell, for example.

Though he pokes fun at its corny plot lines and predictable characters, Klosterman theorizes that the Saturday morning cult hit has more to do with reality than most people would believe.

Sure, maybe there weren't any Zack Morrises and Kelly Kapowskis who went to your high school, but Klosterman believes these unrealistic characters served as archetypes for people who really do exist.

According to Klosterman, Saved by the Bell wasn't so real, but neither is most reality anyway.

The same goes for one of the most unreal reality television shows, MTV's never-ending The Real World.

Here's a TV show that has only served to perpetuate youth stereotypes by focusing on a small sensational representation from the 18- to 24-year-old crowd.

However, Klosterman doesn't want you to go blaming MTV for the indiscretion.

The real problem started in the 1980s when movies like The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's Fire created the Brat Pack, which in turn fueled Hollywood youth stereotypes for years to come.

To Klosterman, The Real World is just another spin-off of cultural archetypes marketed by the pop media.

In the end, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is Klosterman's answer to why our generation spends hours pouring over celebrity magazines and Hollywood news specials.

Basically, it all comes down to our desire to be cool. And, of course, Cocoa Puffs.

"Being cool is mostly ridiculous and so is sugared cereal," Klosterman writes. "That's why we like it."

Now there's an answer I can digest.