Why isn't the group getting upset at the assholes who so excitedly signed up for this shit shack? Is is MTV's fault there is an entire group of people who dye their bodies orange, look up to the Gotti boys for style advice and think Jaegerbombs are da bomb? No! Im from LI, so this is more than familiar territory to me, but the fact these people lack enough awareness and irony is no fault but their own. Now, lets sit back and watch.
I recently lived in a very Irish neighborhood in the Bronx where there was an immigration center and a lot of just-off-the-boat Irish people. Almost every other building was a pub. On the other hand, the only time I'd ever seen it get violent was when I was in a pub where they were broadcasting a boxing match with some famous Irish boxer and at the same time, a fight broke out. But that could happen at any bar. My brother got mugged once, but it was by two Albanians.
My point is, as an Irish-American, I don't care about the Fighting Irish stereotypes because I know that there is some truth and that what isn't (or is no longer) true isn't worth protesting. And especially since The Departed came out, a lot of Irish-Americans even embrace those stereotypes, thinking it makes them look badass. For every Italian-American offended by the Godfather or the Sopranos or Real Housewives of New Jersey, there are even more who love that shit, like it gives them some power. Just live with it. That's what the Irish have done and that's what a lot of Jewish comedians have built their acts on. By embracing or even just tolerating the stereotypes, you reduce their power.
Everyone has someone in their family that embarrasses the ferg out of their people, as a whole. (If you can't think of anyone, then it's probably you.)
The answer may be to raise your kids not to turn into whatever douche-royale is depicted on the screen. Let it be a lesson to you, and stop the madness! It’s a PSA really.
@Spirit Fingers: Everyone has someone in their family that embarrasses the ferg out of their people, as a whole. (If you can't think of anyone, then it's probably you.)
Oh, if only a comment could be bronzed and mounted on the kitchen wall of every home right next to the standard woodcarving of the Last Supper...
In the end, they're behaving like most twentysomethings--only with more spray tan, hair products, steroids, and terrible fashion sense. The guido lifestyle was once the domain of lower class Italian-Americans using (what they considered) flash and violence to cover up poverty and/or ignorance. (Sound familiar?) Mall culture, MTV, and the cinematic portrayal of macho gangsters in television and film have spread the code to alot of other races at this point. Calling this a stereotype of just Italian-Americans is like calling Glee a stereotype of just gays.
I'm Italian, and, while I'm not in the "Oh my god! If people watch the Soprano's they'll think we're all involved in organized crime!" camp- mostly because I feel it's beneficial to have people think I could have them killed. But this show is just ridiculous. Oh my god! We all have bad tempers! We're hypersexual! We love hair products! We have big meals! We love our family! Oh! And we're really, really stupid. Like Tony Danza on Taxi.
@oudemia: Or, really, any Italian person on any show, ever. We're really only allowed to be wise in determining who is going to kill us or whom we should kill.
This show reminds me of the attempted BET show "Hot Ghetto Mess." People screamed bloody murder over the exploitation, but managed to overlook the show didn't create the culture it was mocking, nor did the culture cease to exist just because the show didn't happen.
I'm from Long Island, and this "type" does not discriminate. I've seen guys like this who are Italian, Irish, Puerto Rican, Jewish, and everything in between.
It's just sad when the ones who are balding try to do their hair like that. It's so...see-through.
Doesn't MTV rely on this formula? My Sweet 16: Obnoxious & rich 16 year olds. Laguna Beach: Obnoxious and rich high school kids from Cali. The City: Obnoxious and rich "socialites and hipsters" from NYC.
These are just obnoxious (and rich? haven't seen the show yet) people from the Jersey Shore.
If we're going to get upset it should be because MTV can't come up with a new fucking idea.
As a lifetime local, all I care about is what the shore's going to come across looking like to the rest of the country who won't understand that THESE PEOPLE DON'T LIVE HERE. They are not what NJ is about. We just put up with them for 3 months a year. Guidos, maybe, sure, Bennies, definitely.
I don't find it offensive, assuming people are smart enough to know that these assholes don't represent all Americans of Italian descent. Maybe I'm wrong in assuming that, but I like to give people the benefit of the doubt.
These people exist and deserve to be mocked. On television.
...granted, there is a serious double standard. Throwing a bunch of similarly ridiculous black folks on a reality show, editing the footage to make them look as bad as possible, and calling it "MTV's The South Bronx" would obviously not fly.
One of my first jobs in journalism was covering Seaside Heights, New Jersey.
Let me tell you, lots of the summer beach house renters - Italian or not - are huge fucking douchebags.
The crime rate in Seaside in the summer is astounding - as are some of the crimes I had to cover.
Just one example. Two dudes in a bar get into an argument over whether Coke or Pepsi tastes better with rum.
They ended up stabbing each other over this.
Plus, you can't imagine the number of reported rapes, domestic violence and shitbaggery the cops have to deal with every night once this shits come down for the summer.
It happens that the demographics of New Jersey make it so that many of these fuckwits are Italian, but they really come in all shades and colors.
What's really amusing about this fucksticks is that they are the most homophobic guys in the world - yet dress and act stereotypically gayer than the patrons of Cock during Pride Week.
The amount of hair products they use would put Patrick Bateman to shame and the cologne is worse than a Roman bath house.
@drunkexpatwriter: "yet dress and act stereotypically gayer than the patrons of Cock during Pride Week." Drunk Expat Writer - i totally heart you today for that sentence alone. As an aside, as an Eye-talian lady from the other land of Rampant Douchebaggery (Long Island), the reasons you outline above are the reason I never dated Italian boys and instead married a nice british man!
@drunkexpatwriter: Sleezeside as it was affectionally known by us growing up has gotten a lot better, but its still the mecca of douchbaggery.
The last 2-3 years they have been bringing in a massive number of undercover State Troopers that have cleaned things up a lot as well as improved the rental houses and increased the prices to the point your typical scumbag high school student can no longer go in with a bunch of friends and rent a bungalow for less than a few grand.
I thank god every summer day that the people who frequent those areas dont usually get off the island and stay localized to that side of the Bay.
@drunkexpatwriter: When I was a little kid in the mid/late '80s, there was a rash of toddler kidnappings in Seaside.
My family vacations in Stone Harbor every summer, so we're usually removed from the pit of hell that is Seaside. However, one year, friends of ours decided to take all the kids to the Seaside boardwalk. Long story short, I was three and on a kiddie ride when two sleazebags tried to lift me off the ride. My mother freaked out, started screaming and the men ran off.
Immediately, my mother went to the police station to file a report, but when she got there, the station was completely backed up because there was a line--yes, a line--of women waiting to give their statements about sexual assault. Needless to say, I have never been back to Seaside and have no plans to ever do so.
Eh. For financial reasons since my divorce my writings have mostly consisted of ads for diet pills/face creams, erotic gay fiction, femdom fiction, ads for male and female escorts and how to ebooks on how to eat pussy, get your husband into a chastity belt, suck cock, "the art of female fingering" and international gay travel cruising guides - because that stuff pays for bills, beer and random trips to brothels in barcelona.
@Tchotchke: I started covering Seaside in about 1991 right after those kid grabbings stopped.
But, yeah, the sex assault line was famous and I did a couple stories about it.
There was one "fun" crime related thing I go to cover in Seaside. My editor got it into his head that "A night at the seaside heights municipal court in summer" would make a great feature story.
So, I went down and literally half of it was the judge making teenage/college aged girls stand up in front of the entire courthouse and detail how, where and why they urinated in public and/or how, where and why they got caught blowing some random guy in public.
I have never seen more blushing girls in one place in my life.
@drunkexpatwriter: Amazing. The level of trashiness in Seaside and Wildwood is impossible to describe to someone that hasn't seen it for themselves. Also, walk down the boardwalk in Seaside on a summer morning and count how many used condoms you find. At least they are using protection, sometimes...Silver lining, I suppose.
If you haven't already watched this, I would recommend that you do. It'll be like a walk down memory lane. [jezebel.com]
Also, if you're trying to dissuade people from wanting to read your writing, the list above isn't going to help much.
Go here. Skip the "Beginings of Bareback Michael" - I don't know who wrote that. Scroll down to "Bareback Michael - The College Years" - I did all those stories and the ones after that.
Go here. Skip tGo here. Skip the "Beginings of Bareback Michael" - I don't know who wrote that. Scroll down to "Bareback Michael - The College Years" - I did all those stories and the ones after that.
11/25/09
11/25/09
My point is, as an Irish-American, I don't care about the Fighting Irish stereotypes because I know that there is some truth and that what isn't (or is no longer) true isn't worth protesting. And especially since The Departed came out, a lot of Irish-Americans even embrace those stereotypes, thinking it makes them look badass. For every Italian-American offended by the Godfather or the Sopranos or Real Housewives of New Jersey, there are even more who love that shit, like it gives them some power. Just live with it. That's what the Irish have done and that's what a lot of Jewish comedians have built their acts on. By embracing or even just tolerating the stereotypes, you reduce their power.
11/25/09
It was the "Prostitution Whoo-rah!" heard around the world.
11/25/09
The answer may be to raise your kids not to turn into whatever douche-royale is depicted on the screen. Let it be a lesson to you, and stop the madness! It’s a PSA really.
11/25/09
Oh, if only a comment could be bronzed and mounted on the kitchen wall of every home right next to the standard woodcarving of the Last Supper...
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
[www.bennygohome.com]
11/25/09
It's just sad when the ones who are balding try to do their hair like that. It's so...see-through.
11/25/09
11/25/09
These are just obnoxious (and rich? haven't seen the show yet) people from the Jersey Shore.
If we're going to get upset it should be because MTV can't come up with a new fucking idea.
11/25/09
11/25/09
These people exist and deserve to be mocked. On television.
...granted, there is a serious double standard. Throwing a bunch of similarly ridiculous black folks on a reality show, editing the footage to make them look as bad as possible, and calling it "MTV's The South Bronx" would obviously not fly.
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
#tips
11/25/09
11/25/09
#tips
11/25/09
11/25/09
Let me tell you, lots of the summer beach house renters - Italian or not - are huge fucking douchebags.
The crime rate in Seaside in the summer is astounding - as are some of the crimes I had to cover.
Just one example. Two dudes in a bar get into an argument over whether Coke or Pepsi tastes better with rum.
They ended up stabbing each other over this.
Plus, you can't imagine the number of reported rapes, domestic violence and shitbaggery the cops have to deal with every night once this shits come down for the summer.
It happens that the demographics of New Jersey make it so that many of these fuckwits are Italian, but they really come in all shades and colors.
What's really amusing about this fucksticks is that they are the most homophobic guys in the world - yet dress and act stereotypically gayer than the patrons of Cock during Pride Week.
The amount of hair products they use would put Patrick Bateman to shame and the cologne is worse than a Roman bath house.
11/25/09
11/25/09
Thanks!
11/25/09
I have yet to find the place where a version of this culture does not exist, although the split is usually along class rather than race lines.
11/25/09
The last 2-3 years they have been bringing in a massive number of undercover State Troopers that have cleaned things up a lot as well as improved the rental houses and increased the prices to the point your typical scumbag high school student can no longer go in with a bunch of friends and rent a bungalow for less than a few grand.
I thank god every summer day that the people who frequent those areas dont usually get off the island and stay localized to that side of the Bay.
11/25/09
11/25/09
My family vacations in Stone Harbor every summer, so we're usually removed from the pit of hell that is Seaside. However, one year, friends of ours decided to take all the kids to the Seaside boardwalk. Long story short, I was three and on a kiddie ride when two sleazebags tried to lift me off the ride. My mother freaked out, started screaming and the men ran off.
Immediately, my mother went to the police station to file a report, but when she got there, the station was completely backed up because there was a line--yes, a line--of women waiting to give their statements about sexual assault. Needless to say, I have never been back to Seaside and have no plans to ever do so.
11/25/09
11/25/09
Eh. For financial reasons since my divorce my writings have mostly consisted of ads for diet pills/face creams, erotic gay fiction, femdom fiction, ads for male and female escorts and how to ebooks on how to eat pussy, get your husband into a chastity belt, suck cock, "the art of female fingering" and international gay travel cruising guides - because that stuff pays for bills, beer and random trips to brothels in barcelona.
11/25/09
But, yeah, the sex assault line was famous and I did a couple stories about it.
There was one "fun" crime related thing I go to cover in Seaside. My editor got it into his head that "A night at the seaside heights municipal court in summer" would make a great feature story.
So, I went down and literally half of it was the judge making teenage/college aged girls stand up in front of the entire courthouse and detail how, where and why they urinated in public and/or how, where and why they got caught blowing some random guy in public.
I have never seen more blushing girls in one place in my life.
11/25/09
If you haven't already watched this, I would recommend that you do. It'll be like a walk down memory lane. [jezebel.com]
Also, if you're trying to dissuade people from wanting to read your writing, the list above isn't going to help much.
11/25/09
11/25/09
Yet even the itemized list got me hot. Dang, man! You're talented!
:)
11/25/09
Well, you might want to check out the city guide here.
[www.drag.com]
11/25/09
Go here. Skip the "Beginings of Bareback Michael" - I don't know who wrote that. Scroll down to "Bareback Michael - The College Years" - I did all those stories and the ones after that.
[www.bareback.com]
11/25/09
Go here. Skip tGo here. Skip the "Beginings of Bareback Michael" - I don't know who wrote that. Scroll down to "Bareback Michael - The College Years" - I did all those stories and the ones after that.
[www.bareback.com]