"Jersey Shore" is officially in the books. It was MTV's most talked about show in years but I'm still trying to understand why. It was no different then any other "Real World" show that had aired before it. 7 strangers sent to live together in a random house, with 24/7 camera attention and confessional interviews. There have been 22 seasons of "Real World" yet none of them struck accord with our pop culture the way "Jersey Shore" has. Why?
Watching the show, you're amazed that there are people who are like that in real life. You try to grasp how human infants could morph into such morons. It's pure trainwreck entertainment, but we can't look away. It's the reason we slow down to look at car accidents. I can't explain why I enjoyed watching the show but I somehow got drawn in. I hate reality tv, and will admit this is the first reality show I've regularly watched. There are so many things wrong with this show. First of all, it gives the actual Jersey Shore a bad name. I've been going to the Jersey Shore for my entire life and where I go is nothing like that, thankfully. Secondly the cast members display no redeeming moral characteristics; they are selfish, ego-maniacal people and there's no way around that.
But regardless, the show was pure entertainment. It's definitely a case of laughing at you rather than laughing with you. Watching the cast describe their dance "Beat the Beat" is like watching a dog try to catch the laser pointer dot; you almost feel bad for laughing because you know they just don't know any better.
This show was like a not-so-secret, nation wide dirty little secret. We all watched, but we all felt dirty for watching. And as for its effect on pop culture, type in Jersey Shore spoofs into google if you want to really be entertained. My favorite is Bobby Bottleservice, played by Nick Kroll an actor on the show "The League".
But not everyone liked Jersey Shore. And one of the outspoken critics is Pasquale. He can't stand the Jersey Shore but more importantly he can't stand the culture that Jersey Shore is encouraging. While I do enjoy the show, I can't agree more with his opinions. We've come to love the Fab 5, but this is something different. This is his thesis. I give you Pasquale.....
I'd like to preface these statements by saying that this is not an all out assault on reality tv. i'll admit I watch Steven Segal: Lawman every week. Segal is the king of unintentional comedy, but if you bash lawman, its not going to offend me. Having said that, if you feel offended by any of the comments below, too bad, this is who I am and I make no apologies. With the first season of Jersey shore just having ended I feel its only right for me to make my first comments of the new decade on jersey shore.
Let me be perfectly blunt, I despise Jersey shore, I watched 20 minutes of the first episode and that's all I could take. Here are a few absolutes from the first 20 minutes of this horrid show. If you have a self given nickname (ie the situation) you're a dickhead. If you have a blow out and it takes longer for you to do your hair as a male than it would a female you're a dickhead. If you want to brag to people about how much time you spend in the gym or how you want to marry a guido, you're a dickhead. If you find anyone on that show attractive, you're a dickhead. The most frieghtening thing that MTV has done with this show is make douchebaggery acceptable. Before this show, if you saw any of the clowns from this show out somewhere you'd think, wow, look at these douche bags. you wouldn't find their antics cool or funny, you'd just think they were assholes. But as a result of this show, douchebaggery is now acceptable. MTV disregarded the inherent danger of making douchebaggery acceptable. Which leads me to what I call the Jurassic Park theory.
In Jurassic Park, scientists created dinosaurs in a controlled setting for monetary gain. MTV has done the same thing. They have douchebags in a controlled setting and made them likable to a large portion of the population and have used them for monetary gains. To paraphrase Ian Malcolm, the scientists of Jurassic Park were so concerned with whether or not they could create dinosaurs, that they never stopped to think about whether or not they should. MTV did the same, they were so preoccupied with whether or not they could make douchebaggery acceptable, that they never considered whether or not they should. In both situations, the main illusion was control. The scientists thought they could control dinosaurs and the people at MTV thought they could control the power of douchbaggery.
Now that this show has gained some momentum the people at MTV no longer have control. We're stuck seeing the situation on tv and girls getting the snookie haircut. The electric fences have gone down, and the raptors are going in and out of every paddock in the park( ie. douchebaggery has become acceptable and there is not a lot that we can do to stop this). What we have to do now is find our love ones and band together to fight for survival against douchebaggery. We need to get back to the times where dinosaurs were extinct and the times where the cast members of this show are considered morons.
If the people from jurassic park could survive against dinosaurs, we can survive against a handful of idiots. If you watch jersey shore, you need to stop. erase it from your dvr, don't tune into reruns, don't go see these idiots at clubs or bars, we need to completely freeze these people out. If you stop watching, we can make this whole thing go away. You're just enabling douchebaggery by watching this show. We all took health class and we know that people who enable alcoholics or drug addicts are just as guilty as the users themselves. If you really care about the future of our culture and this country, you'll stop watching this show. We're already on our way down a slippery slope, and if you care at all about the future, you'll watch something else. But don't do it for me, do it for your children and your children's children. Don't let those kids grow up in a society where douchebaggery is acceptable.
So until next time, as always.......STAY SWEET!
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