The Problem With ‘Jersey Shore’ Is the Corner Logo
by Joe Escalante
I watched MTV’s “Jersey Shore” last weekend. My whole band was mesmerized by it in the bus as we drove to a gig in San Francisco. We felt better about ourselves because we found some people more vulgar and self-centered than we felt we were.
Of course it was hilarious to watch these “piles” conduct themselves like primates in front of the cameras. Then I looked in the corner and notice the MTV logo. I thought I had been watching a shock documentary on a curious lifestyle that would perhaps even propose some solutions to what what looked like a tortured existence. The MTV logo told me that this was not the case.
The “cast” were being showcased on an influential channel to impressionable teens. What should have been produced for IFC, or PBS, to warn people about a moral and social decline was being pushed as on going party for kids to join, emulate, and idolize. Just when you thought Heide and Spencer were the bottom. I know it’s tough to make a living in this business, but is all this really worth it for the folks at MTV?
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69 Comments
Wouldn't expect nothing less but low-brow entertainment from MoronicTV. I'm old enough to remember the beginnings of MTV and therefore know the parallel of MTV and the Democat party. both started life as racist until it became more lucrative and/or more politically expedient to announce to the world that they were reformed racists.
And people wonder why i don't live in New Jersey anymore.
Truthfully, they don't look a lot different from the crowd down on Folsom Street here in San Francisco. You just missed the stop on your way into town. Of course, the Jersey boys might be a little surprised when that female kitten with a whip turned out to be a guy named Fred.
Debased MTV programming and the Democratic party would complement each other if
MTV only spoke Klingon and had no connection official or otherwise. The anything goes party
is attempting to eliminate any moral judgements or morality in general by legal means. MTV
Is pushing the morality envelope for sake of demographics and programing. They both are heading in the same direction, who can get the the bottom first, if there is a bottom. The only loser in this race is society.
They are selling a lifestyle, it is product placement, Id love to know how many distillers (or there affilitated corporations) dollars are going into these productions. If these kids were going around being kind to old ladies and animals kids would watch to but Im guessing there is not as much money there. Watch what your kids are watching and explain to them how they are being manipulated. I teach teens, when you illustrate the manipulations they become better at spotting it everywhere, not just in the sewer of MTV but the rest of the mind numbing mana the media oozes out. Speak truth to power of the media.
Right behind ya, just as soon as I can afford to!
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One of many great reasons to turn the TV off. TV no longer entertains nor does it inform. It teases and force feeds cultural drivel to those who are too lazy to demand excellence in broadcasting……
today is a wonderful day! thank you Joe, i couldn't be more happy to see your post here on BH. i hope there are many more to come. am i sounding like a teenage girl yet? long live the Vandals!
I lived in Hoboken from '84-'88. I think the average IQ of the town halved when I moved away.
I'm insulted! Why did MTV feel the need to ship in a bunch of Guido's from Staten Island to pose as New Jersey Guido's, when we here in Jersey have our very own Guido's who would have been perfectly fine?
Since we're dealing in stereotypes, can’t wait for MTV’s upcoming reality shows; “Penny Divers: A Jewish Love Story,” “Hadji and Kim: The Indian and Asian Driving Instructors,” “Weed Whackers: Mexican Gardeners Run Wild,” "The Women Of The Democrat Party: Putting Lipstick on Pigs," and laugh yourself silly with those crazy Muslim terrorists in " Mohammed and his Brothers Make a Bomb." I hear that one will be a BLAST!
I left last year, and I miss it. Despite the high cost, and bad press NJ always seems to get, and this show doesn't help, I loved living there, and miss a lot of the good people and friends I made while living there.
You're right, that's exactly what they're selling. It would be nice to show teens being kind, thoughtful and respectful, to the elder, but that ain't hip. And a hip lifestyle is what they're all trying to sell us. Just more on the continuing degradation and debasement of our society.
Good post McPain!!!
I think that they will all turn out to be gay, look at them
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This guys are both a triumph and a tragedy. My Italian American clients have worked hard and made lots of money. Sadly the dad's focused too much on work. The moms focused on plastic surgery (Victoria Gotti) & competitive redocorating of their large homes. The result was boneheads who grow up in 10,000 square foot houses who pretend they are Sammy Gravano.
I love it when kids decide to imitate the clowns on MTV. It lets me know which ones not to hire.
I always watch MTV to keep up with current events and for moral guidance.
"Isn't it great to be young ,stupid and have no future whatsoever?"
People used to scream at Beavis and Butthead, but man that show was pretty clever. MTV seems to consist mainly of about five reality shows and they show movies on the weekends. It's kind of sad, really.
I remember Remote Control, Totally Paully, Headbangers Ball, and a whole bunch of other crazy stuff on that channel. It's looks like an empty shell. I mainly only cared about Headbangers Ball and Remote Control was pretty cool, too.
All great comments above. I remember the day MTV debuted – "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles! The first years were great. Creative video interpretations of popular songs, the goofy VeeJays, HeadBangers Ball(!), YoMTV Raps and, of course, Remote Control. Hadn't thought about it in years until I read of Ken Ober's passing a few weeks back. That show gave us Colin Quinn and his "younger brother, Stickpin," one Adam Sandler, in addition to the show's best writer, Dennis Leary. Sadly, the network quickly devolved into a liberal haven of RockTheVote and dreadful shows glorifying hedonism, indiscriminate sex, gangsta rap, alcohol and drug use. I have long blamed the devolution of MTV in part for the troublesome youths we have been prosecuting the last 20 years.
Keep Pennsylvania clean……………………..throw your trash in New Jersey.
I don't have "Cadillac" tattooed down the side of my torso……………………………………………but I do drive one.
Haha……………………….what a bunch of greasy tools.
Gee – I remember music on MTV.
The sad thing is only one of the cast members is actually from New Jersey. It's the classless guidos (and guidettes) from out of town that made Jersey shore towns like Seaside Heights a place to avoid. I learned that 20 years ago.
I skipped quickly past this story while my kids were up because a cursory glance at the photo caused me to think it was an Adam Lambert article. Now that I look a little more closely I see that it could still be an Adam Lambert story.
PS: I love New Jersey, but the Turnpike and almost everything along it until past Elizabeth (going South), is just bad PR. Really awful. But get off the TP and head West a bit and you'll find some of the prettiest farms and small towns in the country.
Somebody needs to take my order at Taco Bell. These guys could only hope to do that someday…
He he he….awesome.
I think it's funny that we still have Guidos. When I was in college back in the 70s (URI), "Guido" pretty much meant a disco boy or Tony Manero clone. I think I like the old Guidos better than the new Guidos. At least the old Guidos could dance.
I have always maintained the same thought about Oprah and housewives…..
"My whole band was mesmerized by it in the bus as we drove to a gig in San Francisco. We felt better about ourselves because we found some people more vulgar and self-centered than we felt we were."
LOL!
But so true, MTV is degeneracy and vapid peddled to youth. Any MTV cameras following HUMANITARIAN AID WORKERS in CHAD as they shuffle thru a 125 F day in a refugee camp distributing food or medical care to displaced Africans with open wounds, malnutrition or dysentry? Nope. Too nasty, too hot, too dusty, too dirty, too buggy, too smelly … too HARD. No decent hotels for the production crew to shelter in between segments. No plausible opportunities to show off tattoos .. oh, aid workers usually don't go in for that sort of frivolity.
The nearby Army recruiting office has a prominently displayed stack of "TATOO REMOVAL" business cards. 17-18 year old guys wanting to GO Army have MORE tattoos ALREADY than the Army tolerates! The IRONY! Everyone's a POSEUR tough – so when they actually APPLY for a REAL tough guy job, they discover they've spent too much time on IMAGE and not substance. Army is getting more and more guys who are failing the general Aptitude test. Even the military can't figure out what they might have an aptitude for, they can't read the test! But they had enough money to show up decorated like Samoan warriors.
From the same network that produced the infamous halftime show "malfunction" (like you didn't see THAT coming . . .)
Pathetic when any company brings the lowest common denominator to the masses for a buck. Well, a lot of bucks.
Oprah is one of the evilest forces in media IMO because she injects her immoral satanically inspired philosophy with such sublimity.
Waaay too close to one another without shirts.
I would create a new MOS for for the MTV recruits.
Human Landmine / IED detector.
Don't waste any money on bootcamp, just give em some BDU's, a sharp stick and let them clear minefields by hand.
Back in the day, these brain dead, hair gelled , tatooed mouth breathers would have had their collective asses kicked all the way back to Phila or New York, or wherever they came from, by real Italian men who have more class and style in their little fingers than these wiseguy goomba wannabes have in their entire wasted existence.
Gee – that's funny. I thought it was everything NORTH of Elizabeth that dragged the state down. The "Garden State" starts south of Trenton….
True. What kind of tough guy wears a fauxhawk?
Anyone who wishes to know more about Joe Escalante and the REAL history of The Vandals needs to check out the following article:
http://www.punktorrents.com/index.php?showtopic=1...
He doesn't want you to read it – for obvious reasons.
R.I.P. Steveo and the REAL Vandals!
Great job contributing to this thread.
Not terribly surprised by this show – I decided to satisfy some curiosity and watch a couple clips online and it was hilariously trashy and stupid as all get-out (whatever unit of measurement a "get-out" is). It's par for the course on MTV…the guys are muscle-heads and the girls dress like they're in a 24 hour rave/Jay-Z video.
It'll come and go, failure comedians will make snarky jokes about it on tv shows from viacom's other networks like VH1, and then it'll be forgotten, at least until they bring some of the cast members back for some of the competitions featuring a melting pot of people from the current batch of reality shows.
I have Viacom, but they have a system that works…until people get brains and stop watching their networks, they'll continue to dictate what a lot of us watch.
I use to live close to the border there myself.
Video really killed the radio star!
"We felt better about ourselves because we found some people more vulgar and self-centered than we felt we were."
And to think, I use to watch "Married with Children" for that very same reason. That and the laughs.
You have Sussex County and towns like Ringwood, Wanaque, and West Milford that are nice. More forest and farm areas.
No problem. The truth is always important. If the allegations are correct, Mr. Escalante has some serious explaining to do.
Really? Impressionable teens? Did you have parents while you were growing up? Does your current TV have a off switch, or the ability to change channels? I grew up watching tripe like this, but my parents and religious leaders always kept me in check. Showing garbage like this on TV is the same as selling bleach – no one can MAKE you swallow either.
"What should have been produced for IFC, or PBS, to warn people about a moral and social decline was being pushed as on going party for kids to join, emulate, and idolize."
That is BS. MTV knows, and certainly the audience knows, the Jersey Shore people are there to be mocked and gawked at. Never emulated. That's the point of The Hills, perhaps. To look up to the lives of the rich and vapid. Though absolutely not Heidi and Spencer, whom no one on earth emulates.
What killed video?
But don't stop there – music videos, the video stars, the record business, and in the bigger picture, the musical soul of society?
Better get some more storage space for all the bytes that's going to take.
I've worked at MTV Santa Monica over the years and trust me, scraping the barrel is their Mission Statement. Things are changing over there (management and programming over the past two + years) but don't expect them to throw out the 'garbage'…it's a money-maker.
Does anyone know a 100% reliable method of subliminally communicating messages that encourage these idiots on the show, and the idiots producing the show, and the idiots broadcasting the show, to commit suicide by laxative overdose?
I am just so sick of all the drivel. It's not even worth caring that I should switch to digital. There ain't a damn thing worth watching anyway.
Selling a lifestyle, and that lifestyle, my friends, is called "Douchebaggery."
"If these kids were going around being kind to old ladies and animals kids would watch too, but Im guessing there is not as much money there."
What world do you live in? Not to say that inherently good people aren't interesting, but no, no one would watch old ladies crossing the street as much as drunken bafoons.
We'll always have Youtube!
"Of course it was hilarious to watch these 'piles' conduct themselves…"
What does "piles" mean in this context? A Google search for "'Jersey Shore' and 'piles'" reveals nothing of note, so it doesn't seem to be a parochial term gleaned from the show itself (which the quote marks would seem to indicate). And Urban Dictionary turns up nothing of apparent relevance either.
What does it mean?
How do you obtain the latest comments on these BigHollywood threads without refreshing the page, which forces the whole thing back to the first page, requiring the user to click all the way through again to the end?
Very, very inefficient this way. Is there some trick I'm missing?
The truth is quite important…almost as important as posts that match the thread topic that they're in.
I always thought Katie Segal was sort of hot, too. Now when I see her I just think of Leela…weird.
I thought so too, minus the giant Klingon hair of course..
The real world and not MTV s version. Hot looking guys or gals will always be watched they dont have to be blantantly sexy and they dont have to be bad boys and tramps. Dont project adult values or lack there of on the tweens who are the actual targets of these shows. They are targeting younger kids then you think. bare chested normal teens (not holiwood models) are 15-16 most young men do not have there chests waxed for tv. so like it or not there target is 13 -15 (as teens we are always looking to older peers for guidance) do you really beleive that this is the lifestyle they are seeking or is it the ONLY one they are being sold . THEY ARE NOT one and the same.
yeah are they spooning?
Dean dont want to burst your bubble but absenty parents are currently raising more children than parents that can vote present add this to the number of breeders who really dont care what their kids do and we have generation after generation being raised by the box. Im not justifing these parents Im just saying we are the ones who have to pick up the pieces. Do I have the answers propbaly not, Im not a big believer in censorship and self censorship is now nonexistent. Everytime new standards are instilled to "protect the children" Ie v chip, no adult content before 9 pm and so on the media has used it to ratchet up what they do over since the children are now "protected" the culture i beleive is destined to be a depraved as it was pre victorian (children literally enslaved, no education, and no protection)Then I suppose under the weight of its own disease and disfunction will return to victorian ways and the cycle will repeat. or perhaps the Mullah will beat us to it and lead us back to their view of decency. God Save Us All
Liberty and license how does one define the limits?
Thomas you could be famous, you can add a word to the urban dictionary. Pile is the shortened form of Pile of manure with a more graphic flavor.
The "truth" of any topic on a thread is relevant to to the known honesty of the original poster. I would hope we could agree on that as a basic starting point. If Mr. Escalante is the unethical(I'm being diplomatic here)type of individual it appears he is, I hope we would also agree(regardless of "party affiliation") that such folks should be shunned accordingly. If the allegations are true – he is not the kind of person anyone would want representing any viewpoint they sincerely care about.
I am curious about why two of my previous comments have been deleted, I assume it might be because of allegations former bandmates have made against Mr Escalante:
http://www.punktorrents.com/index.php?showtopic=1...
I hope this is not correct, but if so, this is disturbing to anyone with a sense of "right and wrong".
Perhaps if Mr. Escalante can prove this untrue, now would be a good time to do so, just to clarify and to "set the record straight".
And yes, while "off topic", the integrity of this website is at stake.
Agreed. I see pictures of her now and she's aged really well, as in "not much".
Maybe they're getting deleted because you keep linking to a page that is inaccessible to unregistered viewers.
Why don't you actually communicate whatever it is you're trying to say, rather than linking to what for most people amounts to a dead page?
Do they call themselves "piles"? It's the quote marks around the word that make it confusing. They imply the phrase is specific to the show, yet as I say, "'jersey shore' and 'piles'" produces nothing of note via a Google search.
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