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Junk Food Television, Or How I Stopped Fighting it and Learnt to Love ‘Jersey Shore’.
As much as I hate to admit it, I love Jersey Shore.
It’s not because of a case of fashion envy a la Sex and The City, or because I relate to the cast the way I do with Friends or How I Met Your Mother, but because of morbid curiosity. This group of 20-something New Yorkers are vapid, shallow, and hedonistic, and I just can’t get enough.
I like to think that reality shows that following the lives of excitable but essentially aimless party people are insulting to an audience’s intelligence, but it’s undeniable that they’re entertaining. It’s like watching another species walking in our world, so much so MTV has capitalised on our anthropological desires in their marketing campaigns, “[the show] exposes one of the tri-state area’s most misunderstood species… the GUIDO. Yes, they really do exist! Our Guidos and Guidettes will move into the ultimate beach house rental and indulge in everything the Seaside Heights, New Jersey scene has to offer.”
It is much more than mindless escapism, there’s great philosophical arguments that really make you think such as Angelina in season one debating hospitality versus retail, (”This [T-Shirt shop] is below me, I’m a bartender, I do great things!”), to Snooki’s weekly bursts of genius (”That’s the reason why the ocean is so salty, because of all of the whale sperm!”). I’ve learnt how to GTL, how to dodge grenades and landmines, and how to perfect the boutique cocktail, Ron-Ron Juice. I’ve picked up their language and habits. It’s becoming an unhealthy obsession.
As with other similarly-premised reality shows, like Big Brother and The Real World, you feel as if it’s junk food version of television, that is, you know that it’s unhealthy but it feels so good to gorge yourself on. It’s very easy to teeter over to the dark side though. There’s been times when in the grips of a Jersey marathon, I’ve been asked my opinion on world issues and I’ve had nothing to say other than, “Well, I don’t know about that, but J-Woww and Sammi just had a cat fight!” After majoring in international politics, that sentence leaving my mouth was me hitting rock bottom of reality TV addiction.
I won’t lie and say that I don’t sometimes indulge in my guilty pleasure, season three has just started! But I like to think that I’ve learnt how to strike a healthy balance between the real world and the Shore, the first step was to admit I have a problem.
“Hi, I’m Paige and I’m a Jersey-holic…”
11 Feb 2011, 11:03am Blog Street by admin
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hahahahhahaha thank’s God !I thought I was the only one that like this crap!