In my brief tenure as a pop culture columnist, I’ve garnered a pretty solid — and accurate — reputation for criticizing most of the entertainment trends I cover.
I’ve always insisted nothing could sound more grating than “Glee” or Taylor Swift.
And then I watched an episode of “Jersey Shore.”
I can’t lie: I only forced myself to endure such agony so I could write this column, as well as to understand what you kids are talking about these days. And it was almost impossible for me to pin down one aspect of the show I hate enough to devote a column to.
But after an hour of dialogue alternating between inauthentic accents at glass-shattering decibels and every bleeping invective you can imagine, I had the debilitating combination of migraine and ringing-ear syndrome with a side of nausea. It left me feeling slightly hung over — but inspired nonetheless by the cast’s colorful language.
To someone with Italian heritage, the term “guido” and its female equivalent “guidette” are at least familiar, though not appreciated.
Sometimes an insult can get turned on its head when used by the insulted. This is not the case, however, when half the poster children aren’t Italian (or even New Jerseyan) but talking the talk and walking the walk as if they are.
This, of course, is now MTV’s specialty: “reality shows” that can’t exist without cookie-cutter characters, equipped with a lingo all their own.
Naturally, the result is revival and prolonging of stereotypes, especially when the majority of “Jersey Shore” jargon consists of self-identification gems like “juicehead” and “gorilla” for men, “grenade” and “hippo” for women.
Such primitive vocabulary is nothing more than senseless, immature name-calling, plain and simple.
And timing, as the adage goes, is everything.
Just as the imitation-Italians of MTV’s record-setting series kicked off another season at Seaside Heights, Barnes and Noble announced it was designating January as “No Name-Calling Month,” a campaign crafted to “[bring] attention to the national problem of name-calling and bullying of all kinds,” according to a Barnes and Noble news release.
I guess Snooki and the gang missed that memo. It’s understandable, though, given the only bookstores they visit are the ones promoting their “memoirs.”
MTV, however, seems to have missed a golden opportunity here. Last fall, the outbreak of bully-related suicides among American youths prompted the network to launch a series of public wservice announcements, incorporating several “Jersey Shore” cast members to speak out, ironically, against discrimination.
Months later, our society is again scrutinizing how we interact with one another. It’s my opinion we’re not questioning “the Shore” more for the ways it implies young people should “squash their differences.”
The genre of “Jersey Shore” occupies a grey area in the media industry. Obviously, it’s not reality, because 20-something nobodies who still live with their parents don’t get paid millions just to go on filmed vacations, work out, tan and do laundry.
But a show scripted around people doing what everyone else our age does on a daily basis doesn’t constitute entertainment, either. Round-the-clock catfights and obnoxious people aren’t amusing — they’re annoying as hell.
If I wanted to encounter such spectacles, I’d still be living in a dorm.
We hear so much today about the pitiful state of modern discourse, especially in the political arena. Our elected officials often amount to nothing more than lying, backstabbing name-callers — attributes for which we fault them.
Yet, in an era where candidates face particularly low turnout from young voters, can we really blame policymakers for taking cues from the top-rated show on MTV?
These days, it seems  Washington, D.C. is a bit too close to Seaside Heights for comfort. This “guidette” has a feeling neither city will be recognizing “No Name-Calling Month.”
Kelly Hotard is a 19-year-old mass communication junior from Picayune, Miss. Follow her on Twitter @TDR_khotard.
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