The rich get richer.

LOS ANGELES – Chris Brown was the big winner, but it was Kanye West's night at the American Music Awards. Instead of his typical tantrum — a trend West started four years ago when he lost the favorite new artist prize — the rapper claimed two trophies Sunday and called on his colleagues to up their game.

Sunday night we were treated to another awards show and another excuse for a TV show. They’re called the American Music Awards, but I see that Annie Lennox (from Scotland) won something and Enrique Iglesias (from Spain) won, and Coldplay and Rhianna (from Great Britain) were nominated, so I guess I don’t know what the “American” part is all about.

We like to give out awards, and we especially like to give them out to people who have already been amply rewarded with shit-tons of money, which doesn’t explain all the angst over them. After all, why should we care who wins a made-up award? We’ve already awarded them our money.

Magazines and web sites are putting out their year-end lists, including Sexiest Man and Woman Alive and Most Eligible Bachelor and Bachelorette. By the way, bachelorette is a made-up word because we don’t have an appropriate word to describe a single female. The more proper neologism would be bacheloress. Bachelorette implies that women are somehow lesser than their male counterparts – but I digress.

Eligible is a word I’ve heard a lot but never really knew its meaning. It means “fit to be chosen” or “suitable or desirable for marriage.” What the magazines think it means is “wealthy enough to be regarded as a catch,” because the only people you ever see on these lists are socialites or people who have earned enough money to befriend magazine editors. The dollar sign makes them more attractive, I suppose.

Sexiest or most eligible – by whose standards? It’s a tad bit ethnocentric to think that English-speaking celebrities are the only people qualified to be the sexiest or most eligible.

Those awards are for celebrities, because I think most of us could come up with a list of sexy people who aren’t celebrities, and chances are there are a half-dozen people you know personally who are just as attractive as some of the people on these lists. Mostly, they’re awards for people who have already been amply rewarded.

I have grown weary of awards shows and beauty contests.

“Congratulations, you’re beautiful. Here’s a trophy.” It seems to me to be ostentatious and pretentious to give awards to people who already are satisfied and tells the rest of us, “If you don’t think they’re the best, you don’t know what’s good.”

What’s the point? They’re already winners.