I used to spend summers in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. No joke. Each year my family would leave the sunny shores of Hilo, Hawaii, and fly 5000 miles to Newark, New Jersey, to visit my parental grandparents, 44 aunts and uncles, 60 plus cousins, and the rest of my dad’s humongous family.
During week two of our annual trips we’d load up the clan and head down to the shore. It’s where I visited my first water park (Rainbow Rapids) and witnessed my first ever seaweed-entangled hypodermic needle floating in the white wash near Point Pleasant Beach.
Ah, the memories.
Of course, all this took place long, long before MTV decided to allow reality TV star wannabes to disgrace a perfectly decent beachside community.
The former all-music network is being criticized for sinking to new lows by broadcasting a reality show they call “Jersey Shore.” The series, which debuted a few weeks ago, follows eight Italian-Americans sharing a beach house in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. Basically, the show documents the roommates as they booze it up, trash talk, beat on each other and use copious amounts of hair spray, prior to traipsing around the Jersey Shore.
Needless to say, Jersey Shore tourism officials aren’t happy about their city’s portrayal on national television.
“We want people to know that there’s much more to our area than singles’ clubbing and drinking,” Daniel Cappello of the Jersey Shore Convention and Visitors Bureau told USA Today in a recent interview.
All that drinking and debauchery has not gone unnoticed by sponsors of the show. Earlier this month, Dominos Pizza and American Family Insurance pulled its ads. Around the same time, Jersey Shore’s tourism officials issued a statement complaining about the reality show’s “one-dimensional, dramatized version of a very small group of visitors’ summer experiences.” To which MTV execs retorted: “We understand that this show is not intended for every audience and depicts just one aspect of youth culture. Our intention was never to stereotype, discriminate or offend.”
Still, tourism officials are concerned that what people see of belligerent Jersey Shore visitors on TV, will negatively affect their bottom line.
Says Cappello: “The Jersey Shore does not have a brand identity to much of America other than what they’re seeing now. The name of the show is our destination.”
Would you consider staying away from the Jersey Shore after watching MTV’s “Jersey Shore?”