Jersey $hore

Jersey Shore. Whether you like it or not, this show is everywhere. It's on TV, it's in the gossip mags, it has Facebook applications, and now they're getting ready for season 2. Jersey Shore is not going anywhere. So my friends, let's face our fear and deal with this head on.

The general attitude seems to be that these are vapid, ignorant, juice-head guidos and guidettes who are giving Italian-Americans a bad rep and the Seaside Heights P.D. enough overtime to buy their own summer homes on the boardwalk. For the most part I agree, although being half-Italian and originally from Long Island, I gotta say that while these kids are characaturesque (if that wasn't a word before, I just made it one), all you have to do is walk into a bar on LI and the blinding glare of gold chains and painted on t-shirts lets you know that MTV's casting office knows what it's doing. Do we really have to tell people that not everyone with a last name ending in a vowel from the NY-metro area is like that? Um...unfortunately, I think we do. But that's now what I'm here to discuss.

Everyone talks about the craziness of this show. It's true, it's a train wreck that beckons us to keep watching. But hearing about the negotiations that went into securing a second season has raised some existential questions. WTF you say? Hear me out:

In negotiating for Season 2, the cast pulled a Friends-like maneuver and rejected MTVs low-ball first offer. I don't know the ins-and-outs (isn't it enough that I'm devoting a blog entry to this?) but word has it that they settled on $10,000 each per episode for a 12 episode season. Um, that's 3 months of sitting around talking about protein bars and push-up bras in a rent-free beach house on the boardwalk for a cool $120,000. Plus, they are getting paid for club and party appearances and whatever other ridiculousness reality tv-fame has to offer. And I heard that Snooki is getting a show of her very own, Snookin' for Love. (FYI, I'm 2 inches taller than her, take that Snickers!)

This begs the question, WTF am I doing? Maybe a membership to a tanning salon would have been more lucrative than my graduate degree. It definitely would have been cheaper, and thus, possibly a better investment. Should I have been working on the perfect poof instead of the perfect resume? Instead of climbing the corporate ladder should I be working on my pole dancing?

I joke of course, but you know what they say, there's much truth in jest. I may not have my own show or $120,000 for a summer spent at the shore. But I have my dignity, my self respect, and my student loans. Could I really live with myself if I made a living by being a national laughing stock? Of course not. But then again who knows what I could've become if I grew up being known as The Princess of Poughkeepsie.