Watching ‘Jersey Shore’ might make you dumber, study suggests
Well, duh.
“Jersey Shore” is one of those shows that sucked me in for about two episodes. Long enough to figure out what was really going on, and to become kinda disgusted. It is clearly about the shallow dregs of society and how they have deluded themselves into thinking that by making themselves look like Oompa Loompas on steroids, they’re improving themselves. Sadly, by showing these genetic defectives with money ($100 K per idiot per episode) and attention, MTV and the rest of the media has only bolstered this view.
Similar shows:
“The Simple Life:” With Nicole Ritchie and Paris Hilton. At first, watching these two nithingrs “work” on farms was mildly entertaining until I saw the chaos and actual damage they were creating. My initial impression of them being vacuous airheads was replaced with an impression that they are actively evil. Not major evil, petty evil… but watching evil people do evil things to regular folks without any possibility of proper retribution was disheartening.
“Pimp My Ride:” At first I thought it was a neat show about a car modification shop doing some neat stuff for some deserving people for free. Then I realized a few things:
1: The cars weren’t generally improved in any meaningful way… if they were crappy fuel hogs going in, they were probably crappy fuel hogs coming out.
2: The cars were often loaded down with bling & appliances that appeared to cost more than not only the car, but the total financial worth of the owners. Which means that in order to keep the car, the owners insurance rates probably went through the roof.
3: The pimped-out cars were generally dropped off in Bad Neighborhoods. I’d be interested to know what the rate of theft or vandalization was on these vehicles.
“Hard Core Pawn:” At first I thought it was a show about the interesting things that people bring into pawn shops, such as is the case with “Pawn Stars.” However, it quickly became obvious that the items are just MacGuffins. The real show is about how just about everybody involved, staff and customers, is a horrible, horrible person that you’d in no way want to associate with.
Now, I’ve no problem with shows that focus on evil characters… even characters of *pathetic* petty evil. But shows that exalt incompetance and sub-mediocrity? Bleah.
Yes, yes, I know…
5 Responses to “We Already Knew That, Thanks”
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I really like “Pimp My Ride” because unlike other shows about a customizing shop, this one has everybody getting along rather than arguing with each other all the time, which wouldn’t work in a real shop that was going to succeed financially. Besides, Xzibit comes across as a very likable guy with a good sense of humor.
The reason the cars get delivered to low income areas is that it’s a requirement of the show that the people who get their cars worked on have pretty low income. I imagine most of them sell the cars pretty quickly after getting them back at a pretty good price, as they are no doubt collector’s items.
They once worked on a Ford Festiva like I had, giving it a nitrous oxide injection system… I’m surprised the engine didn’t blow up as soon as they activated it, as that was like putting a JATO bottle on a Schwinn bicycle. 😉
Shame there can’t be a show following the work at SpaceX and other similar companies.
Show people that are actually working to advance humanity and reach new frontiers, rather than showing people trying to reach new lows of selfishness, greed, and vanity.
Here’s the Catch 22: if your show is about scumbags…r est assured that there are a *lot* of scumbags who’d be thrilled to put their scumbaggery on display. If your show is about a high-tech, highly competative small niche industry… you’ll find relatively few willing to put their “competition sensitive” work on full display.
Not that you *can’t* fins such, of course. “Howe & Howe tech” and “Sons of Guns” are both shows about companies advancing the state of the art in their industries.
Another problem is that in the “reality shows,” the name of the game is Stuff Happening and Lots Of Drama. But Stuff Happens in large-scale development programs (SpaceX is friggen Ginormous compared to Red Jacket or H&W) at a slow and often unpredictable pace… and much of the actual work in aerospace engineering is dullsville. And Drama might be fine for a show like “American Chopper,” where people fighting and throwing things doesn’t make a lot of difference to the project; but that *does* have a negative impact in advanced aerospace development.
It would be nice to live in a world where when I told a pretty girl what I once did for a living her eyes didn’t immediately glaze over, but that’s not the world this is. Aerospace bores the crap out of most people.
<aerospace bores the crap out of most people
some actually do find it interesting,as long as you don't get too technical with them.
>>aerospace bores the crap out of most people
>some actually do find it interesting,as long as you don’t get too technical with them.
Subtract “most” from “all” and you’re left with “some.” The question is whether “some” is a large enough percentage of the TV viewing public to make such a venture attractive to a TV series production company. The only vaguely “aerospace development” program that I can recall was “Master Blasters” which was like “Junkyard Wars” in that two teams of amateur rocketeers were set the task of building large-size “model rockets” to certain roles. The show didn’t last but a few episodes.