Jersey Shore

I'm not going to lie. I hate reality television. I really do. Everyday, everywhere you turn, there's a new reality show on the horizon for obnoxious (mostly young) people who clearly don't deserve the attention they're getting on their own reality show, only to have them become tabloid fodder for the next several months after the show has faltered or been replaced by a new one. Everybody knows about Paris Hilton, the Kardashians (Khloe, not Kim, is one curvaceous Armenian-American bombshell, by the way), Kendra Wilkinson, the various "Love" shows on VH1, and now MTV has put out their latest: "Jersey Shore."

Seriously, what is our American culture coming to? Have we really been reduced to an "idiocracy"? According to Mike Judge's 2006 film, yes we have.

"Jersey Shore" became a huge hit when it debuted in December 2009, and also sparked a myriad of controversies stemming from its negative portrayal of eight Italian-American young people (according to Wikipedia, only five of the eight 20-somethings are actually of genuine Italian ancestry), who have a summer share on New Jersey's Seaside Heights community and thus bringing a lot of unwelcome notoriety to the area. These eight self-proclaimed "Guidos/Guidettes" (four Italian-American men and four Italian-American women) - alpha male Mike "The Situation," DJ Pauly D, Ronnie, Vinny (my personal "favorite," meaning he's the least annoying and he is essentially a nice, good guy who for the most part stays out of the worst trouble), Sammi "Sweetheart" (the only one of the cast members who is actually from New Jersey), Jenni "JWoww," Angelina "Jolie," and fan-favorite Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi - spend their summer on Jersey Shore partying, hooking up, tanning, drinking, fixing their hair (guys and girls both), clubbing, fighting, and engaging in every other form of debauchery known to man while also finding some time taking turns working in a boardwalk t-shirt store.

"Jersey Shore" is pretty atypical when it comes to reality television. The show is pure trash, pure unbridled trash. But like most guilty pleasure television, "Jersey Shore" keeps you watching no matter how much it goes against your better judgment, and however many brain cells you might kill by tuning in to watch new episodes every week. It's an instance in which you'll be watching it one minute, and then kicking yourself the next for doing so. The characters are typical reality show fodder: the alpha male, the entertainer, the bitch/drama queen, the slut, the troublemaker, the instigator, the stalwart nice hero guy - you get the point, because we've seen it all before. None of the characters are particularly likable or sympathetic (except for my "favorite," of course, Vinny), but they are engaging and have over-sized egos and personalities that have launched them into pop culture stardom, whether they are deserving of it or not.

In other words, they're here to stay, whether we like it or not...

MTV really outdid themselves with "Jersey Shore"; not only was the show a ratings success (as of now, a third season is already in the works), but it has become a bona-fide pop culture phenomenon complete with t-shirts, endorsements, and its own "Jersey Shore"-esquire lingo ("yo, that ugly chick in the jacuzzi's a 'grenade'"). Already, "The Situation" is set to gain $5 million by the end of the year in a planned autobiography book deal, a workout fitness routine, and various other endorsements. Ronnie was charged with aggravated assault stemming from an incident in which he knocked out a guy who had confronted him at a nightclub. And poor little "Snooki" was recently charged with annoying people on the beach while heavily intoxicated; and she also got her lights punched out by some guy at a bar during the first season (poor "Snooki" - she's got a big mouth, all right, but no one deserves to get hit like she did by a big drunken coward like she did, no matter how annoying she was being).

"Jersey Shore" is trash entertainment, purely. I'm addicted to this show now, I think, after having purchased the first season on DVD after scattered viewings on TV got my mouth watery for 20-something New Jersey-style antics and debauchery. I can't stop thinking or talking about it with people who care for it. Yes, sir, that's reality TV infamy for you, and it worked its magic on yet another poor soul who will be feeling very sorry for having watched it on an ultra-curious whim...

I can't believe it only has a 3.6 rating. Sure it's no Game of Thrones but this is binge worthy, trash tv at its finest. Think Friends but everyone's drunk and arguing 70% of the time. It's hilarious, and always cheers me up. I love it!

As a transplanted New Yorker who spent years in South Jersey while growing up; I am ashamed of this addition to its so-called reality programming roster for young people.

This show does seem like something The Science Channel, The Discovery Channel or Animal Planet should be showing. But MTV Networks thought it would be entertaining to show the social retardation and animalistic behavior of these humans raised in this little area by a shore in New Jersey. Understand it's not all of New Jersey, and it darn sure is not indicative of all Italians in New Jersey or living by an 'affluent' shore. (Sorry, I grew up in New Jersey and to this day, I'm still trying to find an 'affluent' shore. Who's kiddin' who here?) An example: New Jersey young women of 30 years ago had problems trying to find out what it is about them that makes them beautiful, wanted, intelligent factors of humankind. To be more than just punching bags, breeders and dolls for their husbands to parade around. 30 years later, this particular enclave never got the word or winds of change. Loooks like those women grew up, married the men that ticked them off and had children and here we go again. Same cycle. These young adults will have children too and 30 years from now you can bet...same cycle. This is appalling.

I would guess that the most boring show in the world to air on MTV Networks (et. al) right now would be the exploits of a teen trying to get into college (with no sex or violence involved) and the trials of trying to get that sheepskin; or a teen having to take a meaningless job instead of going to college as they wished. But maybe MTV should rethink that because this kind of programming for young people should cease. It's not helping them to understand each other. It's not helping them to love a fellow human being or accept them poor - or fat - or just regular. It shows them that young people have to have an ethnic label; they have to live in grandiose style in the lower middle income of areas. It's showing them how to become animals and fight over that piece of steak someone..like from MTV for example...tells them it is Kobe but is actually Kangaroo meat. And it's teaching them how to laugh at abuse instead of reporting it. It's showing them how to be verbally abusive as well as mentally and physically. And its showing them all this gritty behavior, promiscuity, violence, etc. is all okay as long as people laugh at it and you're on TV which makes them think they're the next Spencers or Kardasians or Hiltons instead of the next clowns.

Bottom line, its showing youth that you have no real value to each other or anyone else: male, female or otherwise. A terrible show among other terrible reality shows geared to young adults.

Even better than "Shark Attack" and "Lamas In Trouble".

When Snooki complains to her father about her boyfriend, he shouts: "Remember, it's all his fault!". Snooki's parents need to win some kind of Parent-of-the-Year award, because the way they reared their little duckling should make any other parent red with envy. So all you people out there, bring up your child so that it knows that it is ALWAYS right, no matter what it says/does/breaks. Never punish, admonish or correct; just let the little chipmunk run amok, and you can't go wrong. Total freedom as the wrong way to push your child in the proper direction? Wrong. Who wouldn't want to have a daughter with as little inhibition as a wild animal, while taking such pride in dressing up like a wasted middle-aged hooker? Rear your child as Snooki's parents have done, and it need not ever use a public toilet again: we underestimate the uses of street pavement.

To be fair, there is the issue of genetics, too; Snooki was adopted. And yet this should by no means serve as a deterrent to future adopters. Traveling to a remote mountain-region in Chile where someone you'd never even met before hands you the child of an unknown set of parents - now that's true idealism for you. They didn't even care when told that she is the offspring of a pair of exiled village idiots. They took the tiny Indian girl with open arms and treated her like an exotic souvenir monkey for the next 25 years, indulging her every whim.

JS consists of 4 guys who want to be black, and 4 women who want to be prostitutes. I don't mean "black" just because they are so obsessed with tanning, I'm referring also to the incessant YOs and BROs and "da hood" arm-flapping. JS is a unique sort of televised zoo in which all eight animals are (more-or-less) free to roam around the park. But, as all critters, their interests are essentially limited to sex and food. Tanning also, and laundry: our eight chimps need to smell nice just hours before they sweat it out on the dance-floor, fist-pumping ("air-hitting") to the rhythm of "music" which only lower species of primates can find inoffensive/enjoyable. The fact that LMFAO, the worst corporate product on the planet, was asked to "write" for the opening credits says it all. JS is much better than any "Real World" season because MTV found an even more primitive and decadent bunch of attention-seeking, fame-hungry exhibitionists than ever before. Guidos are ideal for this format because (like all animals) they ignore the cameras and aren't too self-conscious. In fact, they aren't conscious at all.

As with the show's predecessor, Animal Planet's "Monkey World", the apes all look alike but have these wonderfully different personalities. A unique characteristic of the young females is that they - instead of emulating older females – impersonate the young males: they're violent, aggressive, go to the gym, burp/fart, and then drown in alcohol at night. Ironically, they never try to imitate the young males in their neatness or willingness to prepare food: the females party like animals and they live that way too. Stumbling over broken glass or an old pizza-slice on the floor is a way of life for the chimpus guidoae female.

Unlike other mammals, the young Guidette is actually even more aggressive than its steroid-pumped male counterpart. The Guidette proudly displays her "femininity" (hence willingness to mate) by cursing, yelling, sticking out her "kuka" in public, getting into cat-fights, and "smooshing" with other females. However, the Guido is usually unimpressed with any of that and mates with the Guidette only when he can't capture a blond non-Guidette female. The snatching of the non-Guidette, a prized possession for the horny non-picky gorilla-juice-head, usually takes place in the primate's natural habitat: the nightclub. It's there that all the most ridiculous elements of guidotic existence unite: the crowded, smoky, smelly, noisy disco is what Guidos call "home". In this pointless jungle they are free to engage in their ritual mating dance without having to worry about looking utterly foolish.

But the male impersonates the female, also; the Guido gets manicures, pedicures, plucks his eye-brows, utilizes an array of perfumes, visits hair-salons very often, and even roasts himself willingly in tanning rooms on an almost daily basis. In that sense he reveals his latent homosexuality. Perhaps this is why the guidus baboonus has a need to over-compensate i.e. prove his machismo - both to himself and others; this can best be observed, in its most extreme form, in the case of a sociopathic chimp called "The Situation". Mike's inferiority complex and continual failure to become the alpha male of the group leads him to a series of near-fights - when he provokes another male(s), but does so very carefully so as to avoid getting involved in an actual scuffle (which would end poorly for him).

Sending these 8 entertaining mammals to Italy was right on the money. Merely to watch these "patriotic" Italo-Americans stumble around cluelessly in their "mamma-mia-land" – worth the price of admission alone. No tattooed apes with steroid muscles and very few girls spreading their legs for the first guy why winks at them; what a disappointment this must have been for them. Even more telling was that none of these "Italia!"-shirt-wearing clowns speak the language (apart from Vinnie, who is slightly smarter – or shall we say "less stupid" than the rest). Nevermind that their parents are mostly fluent Italian-speakers or that it's one of the most popular/easiest languages. On the other hand, Mike & co can barely speak English, so a "second" language would be simply asking too much.

One complaint: when Angelina became unhappy with the quality of bananas, she left – to be replaced by Snooki's pal Deena, an orangutan juice-head disguised in a Robert Loggia costume. Why couldn't they have cast the beautiful Ryder instead?

I accidentally paused while channel surfing and couldn't believe the depths of this show. Drivel. Mindless. Mind-numbing. Mind-altering! But.... oddly alluring. Like the altered state you achieve after being kicked in the groin one too many times (is once not too many? Tune in and find out!), I was transfixed, until the automatic desire to both breathe and flex some muscles kicked in and I was able to get the hell out of there.

It is truly, TRULY awful. How many times need we say this - just what is wrong with people that they think their lives are enriched by going on shows like this?