Nicole Dellolio – Special To The Southern News –
It is almost that time again: T-shirt time. The premiere of the sixth and final season of “Jersey Shore” is Oct. 4 on MTV.
Over the summer, paparazzi and fans surrounded the Shore house hoping to get a glance of the cast at all times of the day. Much to my luck, I wound up meeting Mike Sorrentino and Pauly D while they were filming.
It may come as a surprise, but “The Situation” was a genuinely nice person, while Pauly D was the same laidback goofball that he is on television This final season is bound to be entertaining as always.
Cecilia Kurachi, a sophomore media studies student at SCSU, is counting down the days until the premiere of “Jersey Shore.”
“I personally enjoy watching it because I genuinely do find it entertaining,” said Kurachi. “I just don’t think the reality show has the best intellectual influence on society.”
The reality show first premiered in 2009 and portrays the themes of partying, drinking and hooking up in Seaside Heights, N.J. The Shore house is located on the boardwalk overlooking the beach. Below is the Shore Store where the roommates work all summer long.
Kurachi said the show sends a bad message to the youth and sends them mixed signals as to what the media expects them to be like when they get older.
“In other words, we certainly don’t want any generation to grow up thinking it’s all right to DTF the first guy you meet,” said Kurachi. “As far as entertainment goes, I don’t find any harm in watching it as long as people know the fine line between entertainment and reality.”
The cast on the show shouldn’t be looked at as role models to children but as entertainment for higher age groups, said Kurachi.
This season differs from the others because “Snooki” is pregnant and is living in the house next door. Meanwhile, “The Situation” is sober and living in the house with the rest of the roommates.
This will be the last season of “Jersey Shore” due to the decline in viewers after reaching a high of 8.8 million viewers from the season in Italy, according to the Huffington Post.
This decline in viewers is a big surprise to me because when I was in Seaside Heights over the summer, there was a crowd around the Shore house and Shore Store.
Michael Wood, a junior accounting student at SCSU and bartender in downtown New Haven, said he can see the influence that the show has had on college students.
“There are big changes in culture, the way people dress, and hairstyles,” said Wood. “The show sets a very high bar for going out and drinking to the point of blacking out and seems to make it look 100% acceptable.”
Wood said that even though the show depicts the cast drinking obsessively, they never drink and drive and always take taxis to and from the club. This is a positive aspect of the show and shows that even though the cast likes to have fun, they do it responsibly, said Wood.
Since Nicole Polizzi, Mike Sorrentino, and Pauly DelVecchio have the highest ratings on the show, they each make around $2.55 million per season, according to Radar, an online entertainment website.
“They’re pretty much getting paid to party, fight and cause drama with each other,” said Ally Cavallaro, a junior education student at SCSU.
Cavallaro said that the show hasn’t directly affected her life, but she used to watch it all of the time because the drama in it was entertaining. When students in New Haven go out to clubs, they dress in the same attire and hairstyles that are seen on the show, said Cavallaro.
Melanie George, a sophomore studio art student at SCSU, said that the Jersey Shore is a disgrace to society and has only watched a couple of episodes. George said that she catches herself talking like people from the show and hates it.
“I think that the show misrepresents people from Jersey in general,” said George. “I know people from there and none of them act like that.”
